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Webster Family Library of Vet3rinar>' Medie'ift©

Cummir.gs School of Veisrinsry Medicine at

TufiS University

200 VVactboro Road

North Granon, MA 01536

THE

BEBT SEASON ON RECORD,

Jlti^iratcb hn ]Jcnmssioit to ij.ll.i). tbc prince of wlaics.

7« mcdiiun Zvo, clotli, price \is. 6d.

THE

CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE.

ELEVEN SEASONS' SKIMMINGS.

By CAPT. PENNELL-ELMHIRST (" Brooksby.")

With Illi'strations Coloured and Plain,

By JOHN STURGESS.

-iv|\\:j^

1"\

m\^^/ '^ '^

THE

BE8T SEASON ON BEGOBD

(SELECTED AXD KEPUBLISHED FKOM "THE FIELD")

CAPTAIN PENNELL-ELMHIRST

("BROOKSBY")

AI'THOR OF "TUE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE"

WITII ILLUSTRATIONS, COLOURED AND PLAIN,

JOHN STURGESS

LONDON

GEOEGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE

1884

<

LdNDON :
BRADBURV, AGNEW, & C.)., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

A Preface at Home and Abroad 1

CHAPTER II.
The Leap on the Thorn ^

CHAPTER III.

An Autumn Gallop 17

CHAPTER IV.
The Opening Day 2t>

CHAPTER V.
Men and Manners 42

CHAPTER VI.
Baggeave 52

CHAPTER VII.

Barkby Gorse to Tilton 62

CHAPTER VIII.
Hill and Dale 74

CHAPTER IX.
A Two Days' Break 8G

CHAPTER X.
Barkby to Tilton again i>l

^'^ CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.

PAGE

Sport in Season » 98

CHAPTER XII.

The Old Year Out 110

CHAPTER XIII.

The New Year In 117

CHAPTER XIY.

One Week's Work 132

CHAPTER XV.

E. G 145

CHAPTER XYi;.
Hearsay 152

CHAPTER. XVII. „
The John 0' Gaunt Gallop 163

CHAPTER XVIU.
Harder and Harder 172

CHAPTER XIX. .
Old Friends . • 178

CHAPTER XX.
The Curate in Spring 1!)1

CHAPTER XXI.
Drying Up ! 203

LIST OF FULL PAGE ILLUSTEATIONS.

"Forty to One against Bendigo" .... Frontifj'iece,

" The sturdy brown horse jumped as high as he could, and as far as

he could" ........ To face 2)ag<' -ii

" Eeynabd don't seem to see it. ' Take those Dogs away — or

I won't play'" To fdcr -page 10:>

" Half a dozen others filled in the picture with success or disaster " ,

To face pcKji: 1.51>

THE

BEST SEASON ON KECOED.

CHAPTEK I.

A PREFACE AT HOME AND ABROAD.

^- %>^5i^ t^' -r^i^r 'A III,,

_,=^ _.^^^^.^=J'^e;"Jn^RIDAY, October 12tli, ^Yas
' ' ^ ~~ our first eleven o'clock meet,

and the first muster in becoming force. The Quornwere
at Gaddesby Hall ; and a pleasant little field, still
wearing the garb of sober autumn, accompanied the pack
to Mr. Cheney's Spinnies. Business was meant from the
very first — the young hounds were to have blood, and

2 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

siicli tiny coverts must of necessity throw most of tlie
work outside their boundaries. And all the country
round Gaddesby Is very charming when hounds cross it —
•even before the leaves have fallen or the herbage has lost
its summer luxuriance. The inclosures are all grass, the
fences perhaps a little strong for nerves that are yet
scarcely tuned to play. But the gates are ample and
handy ; and there were men enough to-day to ride
through a rail or to point a ready alternative at any
moment. Between Gaddesby and Queniboro' especially,
gates provide a happy release from difficulties otherwise
insuperable ; for the thorn fences grow to a height above
ambition or daring, in even their rarest and extreraest
forms. Now, besides being big and forbidding, they
•constituted so many leafy screens which constantly hid
hounds from sight when only a field away ; and our
galloping in search was often very vague and haphazard.
A stralo-ht fox and a stronir scent would have lost us all
more than once. But foxes do not always run straight
in October (the happy succession of gallops two years ago
forming the proving exception) ; and so, though we rode
and jumped, loitered and shirked, for upwards of two
hours on Friday afternoon, it was almost entirely within
the little triangle of Gaddesby, Barkby Holt and Queni-
boro' (each point at about two miles apart from the
others). The day was as hot and sultry as any of the
indifferent harvest weather of the year ; many horses still
carried their summer coats, while many riders had gone
so far in deference to the occasion as to swathe them-
selves at least In hunting waistcoats and winter flannel.

A PREFACE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 3

The morning draw was the plantation that is best
entitled to the name of The Gaddesby Spinney ; and
among those who rode away from it, or appeared soon
afterwards, were Mr. Coupland and ]\liss Webster, Mr.
Merthyr and Lady Theodora Guest, Mr. and Mrs. Pen-
nington, Mrs. Sloane Stanley, Capt. and Miss M. Camp-
bell, General Chippindall, Capt. Grrimstone, Messrs.
Cheney, A. Barclay, Beaumont, Middleton, Alston,
Thornhill, 0. Paget, J. Cradock, G. Webster, R. Martin,
with perhaps a dozen others — supplemented by a con-
siderable detachment of grooms, many of whom were
zealously employed for the benefit of the farmers in
schooling; horses that lonir airo cost their masters the
price at all events of perfection.

The fox that took them hence to break the ice (a most
inapplicable parallel in such weather) with five hot
minutes to the villaore — and to die in its outskirts — was
old and fat as many a chosen stag of Exmoor. He
would have little of the open country — though that little
sufficed to put men and horses more at ease. A few
blind fences had been jumped ; hounds had been seen to
run ; and never a casualty had yet befallen.

All that happened in tlie afternoon might in midwinter
be served up in a couple of lines — though it seemed a
full afternoon of merriment and pleasant sport to-day.
A second fox was set going from another of Mr.
Cheney's Spinnies (the one on the hillside opposite
Gaddesby Tillage) ; and a roundabout, but very enjoy-
able hunt, went on for a long time before this second old
fox was brought to hand. At first starting men rode and

15 2

4 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

liouncls ran as if a great gallop were In prospect — tlie
former taking plunge after plunge over the dark green
fences through which the latter had disappeared from
sight. Three times they started thus and three times
matters steadied down to quiet hunting — FIrr and the
Quorn ladles sticking to their fox through all difficulties,
till about three o'clock they had him in hand near the
point from which he had started.

The turf just now is in admirable order ; rich and soft
as velvet, after recent autumnal showers. Would that it
could continue so through the five months which to us
constitute the heart of the year, the soul of our fun !
Now we gaily skim the surface ; now we are shot up and
over with the easiest effort of a good bold horse. By
and by progress may be a deep slow labour; every juii^p
a heavy trial — while hounds may be flitting phantoms,
and we, the lesser fry, become lost in the shoal of
struggling comrades.

It is too early to say definitely avIio will be at Melton
for the winter. ]\Iany houses are taken, but several
rumours of coming visitors have yet to be realized. Mr.
Younger is obliged to give up hunting, and Craven
Lodge will probably change hands — while his beautiful
stud of horses Is to be dispersed at Tattersall's on the
29th instant. Baggrave Hall Is let to Mr. Trew ; and
Billesdon Coplow of ancient renown to Mr. Alston.

A PREFACE AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THE BICESTER.

Seventeen minutes with the Bicester. Only a trifle,
perhapS' — but a trifle flist and sweet, and quite the best
fun that I at least have yet encountered. By no means
the pick of their country, they said, and one might well
believe it. For, even after a single night's soaking, the
ploughs rode deep and sticky, the grass at the same time
was hard, lampy and greasy, while many of the fences
are broad, blind doubles of the most indefinite kind.
Just the country in foct to bring a cropper, and to allow
of that cropper being a rough and disagreeable one.
Still, the fall was far more likely to come when you
were going slow — cautiously creeping and feeling your
way — than in the swing of a merry gallop, with the cry
of hounds strinoino; each nerve of horse and rider to its
utmost (at least so it seemed to one on whom the con-
clusion chanced to be most fully forced).

Bletchington and Kirklington — the two beautiful
estates of Lord Valentia and Sir Henry Dashvv^ood
respectively, and immediately adjoining each other —
were the scene of all the earlier work and play of the
day; and at least forty horsemen sauntered for some
hours amid the green glades and brightly-changing
woods of these picturesque domains. Who were all
these representatives of the Hunt, it would be impossible
for me as a casual wanderer to say. But the following
few I believe I am safe in naming as taking their part in

6 THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

tlie day, viz., The Master (Viscount Valentia), Lord
Henry Bentinck, Col. Molyneux, Messrs. Lambton,
Harter, Leigli, Harrison, Griffith, Dewar, De Vase, &c.

The meet had been AVeston Peat Pits (about a dozen
miles from Oxford) ; and three foxes had been set afoot
during the morning. The hospitable portals of Bletch-
ington were then thrown open ; and when a fresh start
w^as made, it was with a marked and general improve-
ment of appearances and w^eather. Weston Wood lies
on the lower flat beneath Bletchington ; two o'clock was-
the time ; a fox was up as soon as hounds were in ; the
wdiip viewed him away at once over the road ; the pack
was out in a moment ; and the field was brisk and lively
as a field could be. Down the brookside meadow raced
the Bicester ladies (as pretty and even a pac]v as man
might wish to see) ; the brook divided a heavy plough
from the gayer grass ; men wdio knew their whereabouts
took the plough, and if Ignorance did not quickly accept
the lead, he was likely enough soon to be floundering
in that marshy brook. For with strange perversity
Reynard ciuickly changed over to the newly turned
arable — and the brook was a class of its own — running-
under a bank of reeds, and supplemented by a ditch
beyond. Truly they waste a great deal of ground in
Bicestershire when they build, or neglect, their fences in
such needless complication. Is it as a protest against
this, think you, that, as I am told, such a very small
number of the Oxford undergraduates nowadays lend
their countenance to fox hunting? Surely not.

Another wood was in front. At least it looked like

A PREFACE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 7

one. But hounds swung past it at once ; and, leaving-
the rough deep plough behind, emerged on to a
succession of firm green fields. A strong ash pole was
bound high across the only gap in a first tall bullfinch —
and had not the whip and some generous bystander
flung their combined weight on it till it broke, the rest of
the scurry might have been a blank page to us all.
Then the railway, with its two white gates opening like
magic to the Sesame of the hound music. Blessed
platelayer ! Gladly would we tip you — had v;c time
and had we money. Hounds arc driving forward to a
screaming scent ; horses are stretched to their utmost ;
and October condition is beginning to speak in language
unmistakable. Open water glitters in front — maybe a
very Jordan — and they take but little notice of water in
these parts. Ah, 'tis but an eight foot stream that
would not frlo-hten us even in Leicestershire — and we
may follow the huntsman. Colonel Molyneux, and Lord
Henry Bentinck as nearly as we can. For to cling to
the huntsman's skirts — while country and courage serve
you — is no bad recipe for seeing a run in a strange land.
The huntsman is not likely to know anything of the
kindly part he is thus fulfilling ; and on the whole I
should say it may be as well not to ask his formal
permission, still less that of his master. But, depend
upon it, he is, in any country and quite nine times out of
ten, as near to hounds as anyone should be, and ihus if
you can keep him in sight, you arc pretty certain to see
a good deal of the sport.

Scarcely, now, was the little brook crossed, when

8 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

hounds bent sliarply and suddenly back to tlie left, and
soon recrossed the railway. All chance of a pomt, all
hope of a long straight run were gone ; but the pack
was still driving merrily. The hunt-servants readily
produced a key, and the railway scarce hindered a
moment. The next double was a sort of overgrown
earthwork — looking, probably, ten times more for-
midable now under its shroud of bramble leaf and tangle
than when Christmas shall show it out in its naked
ugliness. But Oxfordshire horses can decipher a ditch
and a double ditch of the most misty tracing ; so Stovin
and his following left it behind without loss of time or
numbers. A gateway girthdeep with overnight flood let
them through another stout double ; and soon, heated
and panting, they were i^ushing through a narrow wood
which the pack had already pierced. A few more fields,
a few more gates — then to ground in Weston village — a
circle almost completed — my little story told. Just
time then to catch the train. Just time now to save
the post.

Wi

CHAPTEE 11.

THE LEAF ON THE THORN.

TJDAY, October 19.— A \vet chilly day that
'^ must have been detestable for grouse or part-
vJl^^vs j-'idge driving, impossible for covert shooting,
hateful at Sandown, and more miserable than all indoors.
Yet for foxhunting it was quite passable, even before the
vigour and comfort of the chase began. Afterwards, rain
mattered nothing, and cold had no place — in a glowing
frame and heart warmed to gladness. AVe shivered awhile
in the morning, and we shrank under tree shelter where
any was to be had — moved by the same instinct that turns
a terrier into an aspen leaf as readily when his skin is wet
in summer as on the coldest day in winter. For we are
sybaritisli still after our summer nothingness — have not
even arrived at the sensation of a new pink soaking out
its first rich beauty in clammy coldness down our ribs —
have not yet trudged homew^ard in tight stiff tops, as
Jamely as the good horse limpiug beside us. All things
-are by comparison — and a happy heart is it that keeps a
granary of ill memories for ready use in bettering the
present. There are drawbacks, possibly, to October
hunting ; but there are very many points in its favour.

10 THE bp:st season on recoed.

*' The country Is surely very blind ! " invariably follows
tlie interrogatory of the friend in the street as to " what
sport are you having?" Very blind it Is, undoubtedly;
but let not him and others delude themselves that they
will find the ditches all cut and cleaned for them by
November. There will be fewer leaves on the hedges — ■
and already our horses have to pick a more meagre
luncheon from them than they found ready to hand a
week iM^o. But the ditches are as OTasscovered and
indistinguishable as ever ; and so, if memory and prece-
dent are not deceiving me, they will in a great measure
continue to be till winter snow has played its part.
Meanwhile this very bugbear of " blindness" immensely
facilitates riding for those who w^ill try it. For instance,
on this Friday in question w^e could never have kept
company with hounds along the stiff hue they travelled,
had there been a crowd — not because the fences were
particularly blind, but because they were so strong that
getting over them here and there, and galloping for
gates as often as was necessary, would have been a
choking and constantly disappointing process for a mass
of horsemen. Timber is just as easy to see now as at
any other time — and much easier to jump, for a horse
now takes off sound and probably springy ground. But
then timber, of course, generally occurs in isolated
patches, where a tree has been felled out of the hedge-
row, or a gap has been repaired. At least it is so In our
blessed shire and Its neighbours. Each flight of rails of
this kind only admits of one horse and rider at a time ;
and, likely enough, constitutes the only jumpable place

THE LEAF ON THE THORN. 11

ill a lofty biillfincli. So it is easy to understand that tlie
prolonged detention of the many comrades, to whose
eventual coming we look forward with true and glad
anticipation, is not yet felt to be privation unalloyed.
Shooting (to the delights of which even the most rabid
of foxhunters need not be callous) is never, in the
fashion of the day and the current phases of the sport,
found more pleasantly than in the months of October
and November. So 'tis allowable to bid tliem Carpe
diem. And yet, methinks, I would rather have been in
a wet saddle on Friday than in a wet butt or even at a
hot corner. " Chill October " may be a reality ; but
cold October is an inapplicable term. An old shooting-
coat will turn an astonishing amount of rain ; a billycock
is a much more suitable incumbrance in wet weather
than a tall hat ; rough cords are much pleasanter when
soaked through and through than soapy leathers (and far
less likely to slip you out of your saddle into a ditch) ;
and — not the smallest consideration of all to the careful
and impecunious — you are not forced to choose between
two alternative but equally distasteful courses, viz.,
either to submit a good hunting kit to the destructive
influences of a thorough wetting, or to brave public
opinion and set self-respect at defiance by appearing
among your fellow-men the one ill-clad ruffian of the
party.

The best of this Friday was comprised in fifty minutes
of the afternoon. By one o'clock there could scarcel}^
have been a dry skin among IMr. Coupland's fifty
followers, except in the case of two or three who clung

VZ THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

to tlie worse discomfort of lieavy waterproofs. Already
some of the venturesome had been entrapped in the
gardens and orchards of Barkby Village, while a bad fox
twisted out of scent. But a good number of dripping
sportsmen were still at hand when the run began from
the Long Spinney at Scraptoft. To follow the chase on
paper through all its deviations would be unprofitable
and uninteresting. To begin with, however, we were
soon set going from the laurels of Scraptoft Hall to the
outskirts of Keyham Village — a line that at any time
takes some doing, and that now was only to be done by
means of persistent cunning and the most artful shirking.
Hounds fortunately did not move fast enough to prohibit
such ignoble measures ; and so we could keep them in
sight, while they left Keyham to the right, and reached
the Beeby Brook. Turning here to the right, the pack
at once quickened the pace, and ran the brookside for the
next ten minutes — leaving Hungerton Foxholes half a
field to tlie left, and checking only for a moment when
crossing tlie road just before reaching it. A beautiful
grass valley is this (and, indeed, all hitherto had been
grass, with the exception only of a couple of small stubble
fields), and strongly fenced besides. But where gates did
not favour, there were clean post-and-rails to offer their
help ; and so men made their way Avith little difficulty
and with hearty zest. Very pretty hound work carried
them on by Ingarsby station, and forward till Houghton
spire was close in front. Then a holloa, possibly on a
fresh fox, took them back by Mr. Carver's Spinney — and
soon afterwards hounds were running round and round

THE LEAF ON THE THOIJN. 13>

tlie Coi)low (or ratlier tlie covert of Botany Bay) after
two or three different foxes. The ride home was not a
very comfortable sequel ; but what mattered that after a
run so early and in itself so pretty ? Why does early
lamb tempt the epicure ? Why do fair ladies prefer
rather to anticipate a fashion than to incur the reproach
of being behind it ? Why is there charm in spring ; and
why is there tenfold power in a passion re-asserted ?
This is our spring and our re-awakening. And very very
glad were we now that we had scorned the promptings of
our craven heart — bidding us turn homeward at midday
when the weather was at its worst.

Wednesday last, October 2-Jtth, brought the Bel voir to
Clawson Thorns — and brought also the lamentable news
that Gillard had broken his leg over-night. The casualty,
it seems, was due to the upsetting of the hound van, in
which it is customary to carry the pack to and from work
on the Lincolnshire side. One of the horses shied across
the road when descending a hill close at home ; and the
van tilted over against the bank at the side. The whole
staff, and Champion the Duke of Richmond's huntsman,
were shot into the road ; but Gillard, who sustained a
fracture of the small bone of a leg and a severe sprain of
an ankle, was the only one of the party hurt. The hounds
of course were rolled over in a mass ; but it is said that
not one of them was the worse for it. Very naturally,
the greatest sympathy is widely expressed for the hunts-
man, whose misfortune at such a time is also as serious a
matter to others as it is grievous to him. A bed of sick-
ness and pain in November must indeed be the lot of

14 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

Tantalus to a man who sliould be carrying the horn with
such a pack.

Wednesday's was a lovely morning — if it led neither
to good news nor to great sport. Bright, cool and
autumnal, with the grass sparkling everywhere with
glistening dewdrops, and trees and hedges radiant with
every hue from darkest green to ruddiest orange. Never
was a canter to covert accomplished under pleasanter
auspices, never were daydreams more freely and happily
prompted. The roadside turf seemed to spring to the
hoofstroke ; the sharp air fanned one's cheeks into a
glow and filled one's lungs with life — while the very
magpies chattered two by two in merry augury.

Ten o'clock was the trysting time at Clawson Thorns ;
and only a slender company assembled to see wdiat
treasures the casket might contain. For neither this
covert, Holwell Mouth, nor Old Hills had yet been
drawn — and rumour had it that the first and last con-
tained quite two litters apiece. Nor was rumour on
this occasion far beyond the mark. Each held at least
three or four brace of foxes — and the day was quite a
cubhunting, or cubkilling, one. One fat innocent paid
the penalty in Clawson Thorns ; and two fell victims in
the wooded basin of Old Hills — wdiere for a time every
hound seemed to be running his own fox. The neigh-
bourhood is evidently essentially foxhunting. Labourers
from the fields, and red-dusted workers from the Holwell
ironpits (for alas, iron is now found only too plenti-
fully even in Leicestershire), trooped up by scores, to
form a boisterous and appreciative audience round tlie

THE LEAF OX THE THOEX. 15

ampliltheatre of Old Hills — wliicli tliey luidonbtedly
regard as coming by every right under tlieir own pro-
tectorate, in tlie interests of civilisation and of sport.
The neutral cov'ert of Hoi well Month, it should be
mentioned, had not held a fox : but this will be of the
less consequence with two such well stocked fastnesses
on either side. Arthur, the first whip and Gillard's
loeum tencns^ had no other port of call set down In his
sailing orders. Besides which, b}' this time his saddle
was as thickly hung with fox-heads as that of a warrener's
pony with rabbits. However the little Scalford Spinney
was close by. There might be a fox there — and we have
many a cheery memory linked with this little spot.
There teas a fox — and a bold old gentleman too. But
we did not have a run ; for hounds were soon once more
among the cubs of Old Hills.

Quite the leader, and quite one of the most appreciative
members, of the little party who watched the day's pro-
ceedings w^as the Rev. • — Bullen of Eastwell, now enter-
m^ on his el2:litieth season with hounds — his first serious
fall having taken place in his second season with his
father's pack In Norfolk, only seventy-nine years ago,
when he dislocated his knee. Wednesday last was his
second day in the week ; and, to all appearance (and
certainly If the good wishes of hundreds avail anything)
he will stand work for years to come. Within the last
very few winters he has ridden really hard across country.
Even now his face of keen enjoyment as hounds drive
their fox through covert Is a refreshing and admirable
sight. He was present at Salnmanca ; and he went

©

16 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

tliroiigli the retreat from Burgos. See what foxhunting
can do towards prolonging health and life !

Another veteran was there too, of humbler degree, and
whose past history is linked with less stirring events —
but whose presence in the hunting field ^vas almost an
equally strong protest against the power of the arch
enemy Time. This venerable foxhunter hails from the
village of Long Clawson ; and cannot have lived less
than the three score and ten of man's allotted allowance.
During the years of my brief experience I have never
missed seeing this grizzly veteran at the covertside,
whenever hounds have met in his Immediate neighbour-
hood ; and his mount has been the same since I first
knew him. An acquaintance cemented by such oppor-
tunities of intercourse led me to risk the charge of im-
pertinence and to inquire how long he had been carried
by the same animal. " Fourteen seasons," he promptly
answ^ered, " and he'll carry me, I hope, a good many
more yet." The sanguine nature of the reply will, I
trust, be found justified by events — and the old man and
his tiny donkey in attendance on the Duke's hounds for
years to come.

CHAPTER III.

AN AUTUMN GALLOP.

^55 HE last Friday in October was signalised by
l^mG as last and cheery a gallop as is likely to
^^ mark the Quorn season '83 '84. Thirty flying
minutes from Gaddesby Spinney, over some of the
prettiest ground of the Hunt, and with just enough
people for the requirements of good fellowship. A hun-
dred might have ridden to hounds, without getting in
each other's way — so hiir, open, and roomy was the
country of to-day.

There are times when one should write and there are
times when the pen seems loaded with lead — as there are
times, with most of us, when the tongue must fling, and
other times (and those possibly the most inconvenient)
when the tongue is clogged and intellect is stubbornly
dull. The hour for telling a gallop is, perliaps, while the
spirit is still aflame, before a night's unconsciousness has
drifted the brain elsewhere, and, much more, before other
pursuits have occupied the mind or the platitude of daily
life has achieved a reaction almost approaching sadness.
To-morrow we shall no longer live in the ride, no longer
breathe excitement, no longer be moving cheek by jowl

18 THE BEST SEASOX ON RECOED.

•\vitli comrades as jovially earnest — as madly Intent — as
(may I say ?) you and I, reader. I would put you in the
middle of the scurry forthwith, and send you cramming
and spurring in pursuit of those lithesome ladies at once
— but that every tale must have its lieginning, its
characters however few, its events however tamed by fact,
and its sequel however ordinary. Wherever you have
been of late, you know of the soft moist days that
characterised the latter half of October. The Friday in
question was a full example — drizzly and almost chilly
as one stood still ; wet, hot, and choking as one galloped
and jumped. A few people had been at Ashby pastures
when hounds were cast into it at ten o'clock ; a good
many more had turned up at their leisure daring the
morning — while hounds were fighting against a weak
scent among falling leaves in covert, and doing their best
and liveliest against shortrunning foxes outside.

Gaddesby Spinney is a little copse, with the name of
which my kindly readers must be only too familiar — for
does it not recur as regularly and almost as profusely,
autumn after autunni, as the falling of the leaf? Distinct
amongst Mr. Cheney's other, and equally valued, patches
of covert in the neighbourhood, the plantation that lies
about half a mile westward of the village retains the
denomination. And some thirty individuals, all darkly
dressed and dripping, clustered at its edge in the early
afternoon of Friday. The old sweet sound ! Ilarh to it,
old ladies! The covert's a liny one ; a fox is a fact, a
scent is more than likely, and a gallop ought to be a
certaint3\ Out flashes the fact — ^^o, tally-ho, back ! and

AN AUTUMN GALLOP. 19

may Tom ]\Iooiiey's ghost liaimt tlie fool on foot at tlie
corner ! Ah, but that shp back was only a rusn ; alrca'ly
they are screaming away at the end of the covert
opposite the village; and now you may kick in and out of
the rough ridge-and-furrow as fast as you can. By virtue
of habit the timekeepers dive at their fobs. " One-thirty
by my old clock, anything you like by the time — l)ut help
me remember one-thirty."

" A moment, one moment, please gentlemen ! " — and
the ladies come bundling out, among and beliind the
little throng that has whisked all too hastily round to the
holloa. Twenty yards from the covert is a tall thorn
fence, still bearing, in gorgeous red and faded green, the
full foliage of summer. In a second or two every hound
has dived noisily through the gaudy screen ; and the
music moves lustily on — but whither the pack may be
pointing is a matter of vaguest guess. The lengthy and
impenetrable curtain must be outflanked one way or the
other. Please yourself whether you gallop back or
gallop on. Choosing onward, you will reach the Gad-
desby road, and cut off the pack if it bends to the right.
Slip back and you make it safe should it turn to the left.
Firr, with a trusting majority after him, takes the latter
course. Supposing you are for once misguided enough
to put more faith in your own instinct than in that of the
huntsman, you soon find yourself hammering the road,
with the invisible chorus gradually waxing fainter —
wdiile the stroke of your gallop and the beat of your own
heart grow faster and f\ister. Leftward they've turned,
by all that's brief in life and deceptive in hope ! Easy

20 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

enough — and often convenient enougli — it is to get into
a broad road ; bnt to leave it (as pulpit and experience
have taught us all our lives) is a very different task. So
for a long quarter of a mile never an outlet presents
itself. A gate at last — and off' to the left the gleam of a
white hound darting through the second fence away.
Those two fences and two great furrowed fields are made
up as quickly as hot anxiety and a big striding horse can
manage. In the third the two streams reunite ; and we
are galloping in the train of the huntsman's party.
Amid these tight little meadows and their thick leafy
hedges you will see nothing of hounds unless you are on
their backs. But tlie sinole red coat is the best of
beacons, as it flickers brightly over eacli intervenhig
barrier, or flashes like a meteor across some rising-
ground. This may help you to cut into the grassy lane
of the Gaddesb}" and Brooksby bridle road, and to catch
the swinging handgate that opens into the wide Brooksby
pastures — while Mr. Alfred Brocklehurst, on the best of
timber jumpers, launches over the rails by the side, and
the voice of the less venturesome pleads, Do as you
would be done by and keep it open for me. Twenty
couple, young and old, are driving down the wide green
slope — the old ladies straining madly on the ravishing
scent, the youngsters catching the new excitement that
they have never felt to the full before. We ought to
know this bridle path, and should have learned to open
its easy gates ere now. But the three leaders find no
time nor need to stop — so why should reader and I ?
The fence in the valley is but a flying trifle ; though

AN AUTUMN GALLOP. 21

little clue can we gather of its make and width till we
see that Mr. H. T. Barclay is safely landed — and we
wonder why his horse should have taken no note of the
grass-grown rivulet beyond, which ours emphasized with so
pronounced a peck on his knees and nose. Up the brow
the next is a fair, pleasant jump, and so is the following
one. But " Ware wire ! " sends a chill down our backbone
as we approach tlie third — and right ghidly do we mark the
pack turning along the dreaded barrier. At this time
of year above all others is wire our phantom, too often
our embodied, enemy. Not only is the tight stretched
strand far more difficult to perceive through the leafy
branches of October, but the h^t stock has not yet found
a market, and the farmers are loth to weaken their
fences too soon. Year by year, however, we gladly and
thankfully notice a marked diminution, even during the
summer, in the quantity of wire set to guard the fences
of the Midlands. It is found to be so fruitful of injury to
cattle, so easily knocked out of order, and withal so in-
different a protection against the bull-headed pertinacity
of a restless shorthorn, that its apparent economy is no
longer a recommendation, and very few lines of wii-e
fencing are now either fresh set or renewed. Soon may
the old-fashioned oxer again reign paramount, to invite
or repel with its rugged honesty — according to the
measure and prompting of our years (a pun would be a
vile thing even in the cause of pusillanimity) and our
discretion. But the wire in question stretches only half
the breadth of the field ; and with the regard for their
followers that so constantly characterised the movements

23 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

of fux and lioiuuis tlirongliout this merry gallop, they
now strike throUigli the hedge almost exactly where the
metal ends — and while we behind gasp " Wire," they in
front charge a hole in the fence, and sweep down the
wide stretching pasture in full content. Many a gallop
have I ridden in Leicestershire (as 1 e'en hope to do
again) — and have seen hounds and horses go away from
me more often than I should like to say — but never has
the pace seemed better than now. Fast horses are
galloping their utmost on the fairest turf, an easy fence
comes perhaps in half a mile of galloping, gates are
either standing open or fly back at once to the crop —
and yet the pack is going all too fast for us unwilling-
laggards, till a wandering shepherd throws a chance
turn in our favour. Now we cross the " Melton and
Leicester turnpike," midway between Rearsby and
Brooksby ; now we have worked through a few pumping
acres of newly turned arable, and now we are pushing
up the big grass field for the covert of Bleakmore,
marvelling why the turf seems less elastic, and the stride
of our horse less conformable with ridge and furrow,
than only a few brief minutes ago. Yes, lungs [and
muscle are never in autunni what they may be after
Christmas — and 'tis only the commencement of the
lesson yet. Fondly we hug oui'selves that Bleakmore is
just in front ; and that in another minute we shall be on
foot beside our fat steeds — mopping our foreheads with
gusto, and flinging our tongues in noisy exuberant accord
on the subject of the pleasant scurry just over. Not
yet. For the merry ladies race onwards along the ridge

AX AL'TUMN GALLOP. 23

— leaving Bleakmore ami the railway below them on the
riglit. How now for your "honest oxer'"? Here it is
in its most laudable ruggedness — and, in plain Saxon,
an ugly beast it is too. The rail on the take-off side is
no excuse for the qualm tliat stabs you like the con-
science of a schoolboy caught cribbing his task. But the
high laid-fence shows its strong teeth e'en througli the
heavy foliage ; a ditch of unknown dimensions lies
beyond ; there is a whisper, too, of wire ; and any
number of predecessors are not likely to bring things to a
much lower level. The huntsman quickly makes up his
mind to tlie inevitable ; but his horse (brilliantly as he
carries him throughout) on this occasion whips round to
take time for a second thought, Mr. Brocklehurst clears
the whole difficulty a few yartls to the right, while the
CambridLceshire hero takes the office from Firr, and
makes a bold bid for victory. Post and rails, hedge and
ditch, are covered gallantly. But beyond them all, and
visible only I'rom mid air, glistens another stout ox rail.
" Fortv to one aiiainst Bendigo ! " shouts his familiar
friend as he himself lands in safety. But the only
response to the liberal offer is a loud cracking of timber,
a heavy flounder and another good man fallen on the
turf, blatters are a little simpler now ; and after seeing
the huntsman, Captain O'Neal, 31r. Peake, Mr. Cradock,
Mr. Alston, and two or three others, surmount the less
complicated difficulty, reader and I too may pull our-
selves together, put our panting beast through the same
process — by help of knee and heel against his well-
furnished sides — and even reach the others as, after

24 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

another lialf mile of grass, tliey liiuldle at a LricUcgate
by licarsby. The fox has swung to the left, again
across the turnpike ; but with such a scent as there is
to day, the pack falters neither on road nor plough, but
drives forward over the little fields behind the village,
whether they happen to be eddish or arable. Scarcely
so with their followers. The drive is well-nigh spent,
the steel is out of the iron, and the oil is all but burned
out. A horse will gallop in a mechanical sort of way
long after the power to jump has left him. A very
limited experience with the symptoms suffices to teach
us where such a stage has been reached ; also that a
mere mechanical stride is of little use against a strong
top binder. It by no means follows tliat the fjxculty
of appreciatioii adds greatly to our enjoyment at such
moments. I confess to its having a very contrary effect
upon my frail nerves — and I venture to assert, by the
way, that tlie one great drawback to the pleasures of
steeplechase jockeyship lies in the frequent necessity of
riding a beaten horse home. Now, however, there are
gates and gaps to hel}) us. Again we are on the grass,
and at the pace hounds are running tliey must surely
catch a view in another minute or two. A shepherd — with
more than the acumen or consideration of his race,
holding his colley in his arms — declares "the fox is
nobbut a hoondred ya-ards afore 'em!" the while he
fumbles at an unwilling gate, and we pant and ejaculate,
and hope there is no more jumping to be done.
" Forrard, little bitches," rings cheerily out as the pack
glides u]) the hedgeside, and we follow hurriedly to the

AN AUTUMN GALLOP. 25

corner — trusting that, as liitlierto, providence, and en-
lightened agricnlture M'ill liave provided free means of
egress from field to field. Yes, there's a nice stile for
the use of labourers and for people on foot — and well
used it evidently is, for the approach to it is worn into a
hole, and slimy cla}' has taken tlie place of grass.
Beyond this, the corner is a veritable cul <le sac ; for
lofty bullfinches, of an earlier generation, enclose either
flank — and despair settles upon our souk

If you, reader, happen to have hunted in the Pytchley
country some twenty years ago, when that flying hunts-
man, and most rapid yet laconic of talkers, Charles Pain,
was in his prime, you may remember an. oft quoted
incident that eminently illustrated the man. Reaching
a certain corner, from wliicli the only apparent escape
w^as retreat — (the last alternative that ever occurred to
his mind) he found another hard rider just turning
reluctantly away. Charles Pain Avas one who suited
his words to his actions, the latter being quite as rapid
and ready as the former— so, taking his horse short by
the head, he pursued his w^ay without further ado, accom-
panying and explaining his progress only witli a single
running sentence, " Will do, Avill do — nuist do, must do ;
d — d woolly place— hold up, ye beggar — hey bitch ! "
Men who knew him in those days will easily fill in for
themselves the rapidity of the jerky utterances, and the
high treble pitch to which the last syllable would raise
him. Alas for the feelings of him who had turned aside ;
alas for the plight of those wdio would ride to his lead !
Think you they found their situation any more palatable

20

THE BEST SEASON OX RECOED.

than ours now — Firr's wliitelegged bay Laving shown us
all a clean pair of heels — our fox said to be dead beat,
and our horses undoubtedly so? Well, " nuist do, must
do" — and Kismet is kind to the next three — too kind,
for they do nothing to mend matters for those who have

"LEFT LIKE A BULL IN A POl'XD."'

yet to come. No. 4 has already declared loudly that he
cannot, nay, that he icill not; for that

The heart of his i^ood hoi'we

Wiis niii,h to hurst with viok'iice ot" the l)eat,

And so perforce he stayed, and overtaken spoke.

But finding himself left like a bull in a pound, and that
neither Tennyson nor any other man is likely to help
him out, unless he helps himself, he too puts his head
down and goes for the opening — if so it might be called.
It has every claim to the title when he has done with it ;

AN AUTUMN GALLOP. 27

for half a ton of beaten liorse-flesli will splinter almost
any top-bar in the county, that has been rained upon for
more than a single year (and this is one of the reasons
for our constant assertion that big horses are better than
little ones, to carry us in Leicestershire). That such a
result, however, cannot always be attained without a
certain concussion was, he tells me, instanced in the
query of his groom that night — "Wasn't it close at home
as you fell, sir? I thought as the colour of the dirt on
the chestnut's head looked as if it were,"

Meanwhile the hounds have encountered their first
momentarv check — ^tlieir fox havinir been driven almost
back among them by two men who shouted in his very
face. But for this they must have pulled liim down in a
few more fields. Now they of course flash beyond the
point ; recover themselves, however, and the line, very
quickly ; but lose a very vital half minute. By this time
the circle is nearly completed : and the boundary brook
between the Gaddesby and Brooksby parishes is reached
where rails must be torn down, while hounds go on alone.
Again we are on the Brooksby manor ; again hounds
are going faster than we can, and we are going very
much faster than our horses. Indeed, as Who-hoop
sounds over a drain, at the road immediately above the
hall, only the Master and his man are there at the
moment to give it — " the field in varied plight arriving
as best they can." We shall see nothing faster, and M'e
may see very few things better this year. I have made
a long story of these thirty minutes. But The Field is
read by many a man who for awhile can only get his-

28

THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

hunting on paper. To Liin I need make no apology.
The many who may be enjoying equal sport elsewhere,
have their own recent experiences to feast upon. It may
oot be my fortune — very possibly will not be — to find
<3vcn such material as the above for pen or for personal
pleasure for some time to come. Why should I not be
allowed to make the most of it now ? Is there much
profanity in the old Latin's sentiment below ? Few of
us, to whom the vicissitudes of life past and present are
familiar, will be likely to assert that there is.

Happy tile man, and happy hv alone,

He who can call to-day his own.

He who, secure within, can say,

To-morrow, do thy worst, fur I ha\e lived tu-day.

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine.

The joys I have possessed, in spite of Fate, are mine.

Not Heaven itself upon the past has ]iovver.

But what has lieen, has lieen, and I have had my hour.

nicf

CHAPTER IV.

THE OPEXIXG DAY.

TVr Monday, Novem-
ber 5tli, the season

was, according to
time -honoured
custom, formally
inaugurated at
Kirby Gate. As
with our birth-
days, each recur-
ring occasion
brings a less sense
of self-congratula-
tion than the one
before. Not that each opening meet is not in itself a
welcome event — but there Is the afterthought that
another item has been entered against our very limited
credit, and the account cannot go on for ever. Never
mind—" Chal'k it up ! Clial'k it up ! " Mynheer of the
scythe and hourglass. Rip Van Winkle never troubled
himself about his score — nor recked the leap of Time.
Why should we ?

30 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

There is always miicli tliat is briglit and clieerful at
Kirby Gate. The first blusli of pink, the first ghtter of
snowy buckskin, lend a gaiety to the scene, that alone is
refreshing and inspiriting. That the gathering is
attractive as a show, is amply evinced by the regularity
with which it is brought to do duty as an annual picnic
for Leicester and the country round. So, besides their
doing what is right by themselves and comrades in
bringing their talents to bear upon the toilet of the day,
the brave gentlemen who take part in the pageant are
reall}^ performing a public duty, viz., popularising fox-
hunting and maintaining its place in public esteem.
What would the Lord Mayor be, but for the Lord
Mayor's Show ? Why is the sway of an Indian prince,
however cruel and tyrannical, al\7ays far more popular
with the multitude than the cold even justice of the
British rule ? Simply on account of the glitter and show
ever associated with the presence of an Eastern
potentate. Li like manner the gay colouring and bright
surroundings of foxhunting do quite as much towards
keeping it in favour as any of the more sterling
advantages it can boast, or even the claims of old
custom that it can urge. The whole countryside de-
light in viewing the passing pageantry of the chase,
and its brilliantly clad votaries are welcomed every-
where. A flirmer will take pride and pleasure in the
passage of the gay throng across his land, wlio would
give anything but a cordial welcome to a bevy of riders
merely loosing off their su])erfluous energy over his
farm.

THE OPENING DAY. SI

A notice of a Klrby Gate meet would be altogether
imperfect without some mention, however incomplete, of
those present. Besides many strangers from a distance,
there were on horseback, ]\Ir, Coupland and ]\Iiss
Webster, Capt. and ]\Irs. Ashton, Mr. and ^h's.
Pennington, Mr. H., Mrs., and ]Miss Story, Mr. W. and
Miss Chaplin and ]\Iis. ]\loore, ]\Ir. and Mrs. Clifford
Chaplhi, Mr. Ernest Chaplin, Capt. and Mrs.. Molyneux,
Mrs. Robertson, Miss Paget, Miss Livingston, Miss
Baiming, Duke of Portland, Lords ^Manners and Newark,
Sir Frederick Fowke, Sir Arthur Scott, ]\LTJor-General
Chippindall, Colonel Gosling, Capts. Barclay, Grimston,
Campbell, Henry, Hill-Trevor, O'Neil, Whitmore, Good-
€liild, Boyce, Starkie, Fowke, Jacobson, Messrs. A. C.
Barclay, H. Boden, A. Brockleliurst, Baldock, Beaumont,
Bankart, Clayton, Cochrane, Creyke, Conant, Campbell,
Custance, Fowke, Farnham, Gleadow, Graham, L.
Johnstone, R. AV. Johnson (his thirt3'-second attendance),
Knowles, Lubbock, Langmore, ^Manners, ^Martin, Miles,
Parker, 0. Paget, G. Paget, Pochin, Peake, Powell, Rose,
Seabrooke, Trew, G. "W^ebster, Wade, Fox, Sykes, Brewitt,
iSimpkin, Smith, Morris, t^-c, &c.

AVith pleasant weather, and a right good day's sport,
tlie Quorn never opened their season more auspiciously.
Excellent sport indeed they had had for a fortnight
previous ; but the first Monday in November is their
gala day; and is — why I cannot tell — the earliest
occasion on which more than half their re2:ular followers
can be induced to attend. This matter of toilet can
possess no great charms for them — certainly after their

3 a THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

first completed season. The old soldier wears his
uniform only when duty compels him ; the last-joined
ensign (or whatever answers to him in a territorial cadre)
is never happy out of it. No. They would seem to
regulate their arrival by some such hidden law as governs
the coming of the woodcocks — reducing it to practice in
the form of the " first Monday in November," much as
the latter may be expected with the first north-east wind
in the month. I fear that these November sportsmen
find the fences anything but clear of darkening leaf and
tangled grass even now. As a matter of flict, the
country is little less blind than ever ; while the ground is
rapidly becoming deep and liolding — the latter condition
being really a Uiucli more fruitful cause of grief than the
former.

But there were few hills to-day, very much fewer than
I remember on the certain number of previous occasions
that it has been my luck to attend at Kirby Gate — a fact
that may, perhaps, be attributed to the comparatively
slender proportion of the fiehl that saw either of the runs
of the day. Let me get on at once to history. A fox
had been found — or, as is usually the case at Gartree
Hill, whereat another large crowd always assembles long
before the long procession of horsemen and carriages
winds into sight, found In'msrlf — before hounds were in
covert.

So the horn was going at the foot of the hill before
half the cavalcade had debouched from the lane ; and for
all the start they got they might as well have remained
at Kirby Gate. Yet, as the hunt worked slowly over

THE OPENING DAY. 33

the Burton Flat, and round by Leesthorpe, it was easy
enougli for one and all to reacli the hounds during the
next quarter of an hour.

The vio-our and life of the run bei^-an when the fox \vas
suddenly headed and driven back among hounds, so that
they coursed liiui for his life across two fields into the
laurels of Dalby Hall — the leaders straining at his very
brush, and even snapping at him as he jumped the
garden wall. Once round the shrubs and grounds they
drove him virulently — and this bursting struggle it was,
no doubt, that eventually cost him his brush. The many
who know Dalby liall, and have helped at any time to
reap the fruits of Mr. Hartopp's goodwill as testified to
three different hunts, know well enough how difficult it
often is to circmnvent that extensive enclosure of garden
and pleasure ground, covering the side and crest of a
hill, and attracting for awhile almost every fox found in
its vicinity. Now the field hurried round its outskirts,
expecting to meet the hounds beyond. Anon they would
have hurried back again ; but that the narrow lane
became choked and impassable. At this fatal moment
Reynard broke away at the point he had entered.
The wind blew freshly thither, and carried off any holloas
that may have announced his exit ; some of the pack
came away, still almost at his brush, the rest followed by
instinct ; and Firr, under the influence of some similar
motive power, sallied forth too as the tail hounds w^ere
leaving the laurels. Crossing the road below Wheathills,
the lengthened pack took to the grass at a pace that for
some fields forbade the possibility of its getting together,

34 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

or of the few horsemen at hand achievmg more than just
to keep it in sight. ]\Ir. G. Pochin happened to he posted
^Yllere they left the road ; the huntsman came within range
as they topped the hill whereon stood the Grand Stand
of the last National Hunt Chases ; and a small party —
of whom, if I am not mistaken, General Chippindall,
Captains Ashton and Hill-Trevor, Messrs. Martin, F.
Cradock, Seahrook, Simpkin, Morris, and two or three
others, were members — ^joined in to race down over the
first fences of the course — the colours of the butcher-in-
blue going prominently in the van. At Berry Gorse the
pack had closed up ; and the riders had their numbers
slightly augmented — the road along the valley from Dalby
giving an excellent chance to any who had caught an echo
of the departing chase. Thus it may have been here, or
shortly afterwards — or even before, for the scribe can only
particularise under correction, and according to his light
— that Mr. Wade joined in the fray ; while the Master,
Col. Gosling, ]\Ir. Pennington, Mr. Parker, and Mr.
Alston were early in reaching the hounds. A plough
team at work outside Berry Gorse drove the fox through
the covert ; but the line was carried on at once at the top.
The quickest part of the run was during the past ten
minutes and the ten ensuing — though very few fences
were jumped and gates made the way easy for galloping.
A brook — the pseudo-Whissendine — presented itself in
the next valley ; but its banks were ragged and broken, its
waters ran yellow, and probably cold ; and the road and
its bridge lay less than five hundred yards away.
Common sense therefore declared for the bridge — though

THE OPENING DAY. 35

on tlie stubblefield beyond the water the run fox was
phiin to be seen, liis lengthy form moving- in a direction
almost opposite to that of the bridge. So Commonsense
kept itself dry ; and was rewarded by meeting hounds
again, as the latter bent right back into the road half a
mile further on. The prettiest bit of houndwork of the
day now took place, as the pack carried a faint line
qnickl}' along the muddy road towards the village of
Whissendine. For quite the next half mile they could
not speak to a scent ; hound after hound lifted her nose
and followed doubtingly on, but a few old line hunters
never slackened speed ; and when every one but the
huntsman must have lost confidence, the pack broke out
of the lane at a tangent, and pursued its way in full
chorus.

Thus they ran just to the right of Wliissendine village
— many other hurrying horsemen joining in ; and the
hounds warming afresli to their "work when fliirly among
the grass fields beyond. Here the fences came quick
and close, and jumping enthusiasts (a heading which on
occasion may no doubt claim to include us all) at length
had their fling — and, as Artemus Ward might have put
it, they flung. It is not apropos of this particular
period — though it is certainly apropos of the day, and
wholly unprompted by the smart of any personal injury
— I remark there are two essential points in riding to
hounds in this countrv, that stran^-ers makinir their first,
or a casual, essay in it are too apt to disregard, or with
which they have at least foiled to make themselves con-
versant. The one is — tahin'j your turn at a h'liee ; the

D 2

36

THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

otiier, holding a gate open till the next comer can catch
it. Of course the chances are they come out of countries
where the fences are to be jumped anywhere, and where
the gates are never the sole means of exit for a large
body of horsemen. But they would do well (if I may be
forgiven for putting it so plainly) to realise that where,

" HOLDING GATE OPEN FOR NEXT COMER."

as in the Midlands, a single gap is the only place at
which a fence can be jumped, and where gates are often
the only possible outlet, the immense fields which they
come to swell cannot possibly get quickly and fairly over
a country, unless each individual will take only his own
turn, and is ready to pass on the assistance that he
expects from his predecessor. Of course there are
sinners in our very midst ; but they must be endowed

THE OPEXIXG DAY. 37

with a cuticle of inoixlinate thickness if they have hunted
long in the country without their sense of right and
wrong being touched on this head.

But of the hunt, which had now been going steadily
on for about an hour, and had all but reached Mr.
Westley-Richards' Spinnies above Asliwell. As hounds
dwelt for a moment under the feet of hard-jumpers, a
shrill view holloa came up from the valley. " Fred's
holloa," exclaimed the executive — and when a second
whip throws his voice it means, of course, the run fox
(or instant execution). Sure enough, the run fox
(already pronounced by a villager to be " done to
nothing ") had struggled down the hillside before another
section of the rearguard, and had crossed the railway
opposite the village of Teigli. The eager field made a
momentary check by smothering the fox's line as they
trooped under the railway — but. In a very few minutes
more, hounds were mouthing and mumbling In a ditch
beside a farmhouse — and a right good sporting run had
ended as It should. An hour and twenty-five minutes
was the average computation : and the distance from
point to point (Gartree Hill to Teigh) is close upon
seven miles. The scent, a curious rather than a
burning one, was nevertheless sufficiently good for
hounds to run fast and unassisted. At no time did it
seem to carry them broadly across a field — as would a
breast-high scent which each hound can reach ; yet the
pace was fully that of a fast hunting-run.

It was Avell on in the afternoon before Thorpe
Trussels was drawn ; and quite dark when hounds

38 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

wended tlieir way homewards after a sharp httle scurry
(some sixteen minutes over the grass) to Burrough Hill
House.

Who shall say that honour was not duly paid to the
memory of Guy Fawkes on this Quorn Monday ?

Tlie above is but a prosy record of scanty fact. It
conveys no real picture of the pleasures of our opening
day, brings to mind or eye none of the glow of friend-
ships again set going, still less does it bring out the
light of the least selhsh, the most hearty, of all pastimes
— the jotting up at the finish of which involves no such
reckoning as your best friend's money won — nor even
such invidious inquiry and soliloquy as " How many
birds have you down ? I've (to myself) at any rate a
total you can't beat." " I was making a score while
you mooded over a duck's eg^,'' etc. etc. Competition,
no doubt, does exist in riding to hounds as in every
other line of life. But the best result is, " I was in it,
old fellow, and so were you. May we ride many
another gallop together." And (if I read the lesson
right, from the example and instance of better men) he
comes best out of the competition who competes but
with himself, and battles only against his own short-
coming.

The final rehearsal before the curtain rose to full
costume and panoply was enacted by the Quorn company
on Friday, November 2nd, at Round Hill by Syston, and
within very attainable distance of Leicester — as was
proved by the presence of hundreds to whom foxhunting
may be said, without slight or calumny to them, to be a

THE OPENING DAY. 39

species of art in tlic distant abstract, or flimiliarised only
through the medium of Caldecott and stray scribblers
(who shall be nameless) in the sporting papers. But
extremes will meet — and here Avas an instance of the
industry of democratic Leicester drawing to itself the
frivolity of rural and patrician sport. Hosiery has long
been the staple trade of the city. Here it had committed
itself to the freak of eliminating the aspirate, and esta-
blished a large osiery within easy hail of its portals.
To supply the manuflxctory with nuiterial, many acres of
wet ground had been utilised as a withy bed ; and had
at once been seized upon by tlie fiimily of Reynard as
doubtless laid out for their especial comfort and advan-
tage. Thus there have been foxes among the willows
throughout the summer ; and though the neighbourhood
is one scarcely calculated to show the sport in its freest
form, huntiu": them was little less than a matter of neces-
sity — besides offering an opportunity of paying a well-
earned compliment to city and citizens. The river Soar
flows just below the willowbed ; the village of Thurmaston
(almost a corporate part of Leicester) hems it in on one
side ; Syston and its junction completely seal it up on the
other ; while houses and gardens nearly complete the
square — and every chance crevice was now carefidly
stopped by the enthusiastic bystanders. But has there
not ere this been a well-advertised Fox Hunt in
Alexandra Park, attracting and delighting all the north
of London 'i Gate money ventures are now quite the
fashion of the day ; and Leicester has not been behind
its fellows in appreciating the advantages of such enter-

40 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

l^rise. It Las recently started a prosperous and well-
paled race and steeplechase course ; its bycicle meetings
attract many hundreds into a ^Yalled enclosure ; and even
its volunteers in camp are only visible to the vulgar eye
by payment. So far so good. But nothing seems more
natural than that out of the enormous popularity of
Friday's experiment a company should forthwith be
formed — to inclose the withy bed and its surrounding
fields and fences, and so bring foxhunting with all its
more exciting attributes within easy reach of the good
burgesses who have no time to waste on the drudgery of
distant and unreliable sport. For this purpose of course
the promoters of the scheme meditate a pack and esta-
blishment of their own on a lavish and fitting scale, and
with all the appurtenances of hunting in a wild country.
There should be no difficulty, b}^ the way, in procuring
the hounds ; for on the last occasion on which I did
myself the honour of visiting the pandemonium of Mr.
W — , the well-known London hound-dealer, I found an
extensive draft of hounds from one of our leading packs
in the Shires (and individually not altogether uidvuown
to me) just about to join a circus, in which they were to
take a leading part in demonstrating the bright delights
of foxhunting ! The management of the undertaking
now in prospect at Leicester urge on its behalf that there
shall be no plough, no blind fences and no blank days,
that topbars and topbinders shall drop to the touch, and
that competitors shall not be restricted as to the number
of hounds they may kill ; that each gentleman appearing
in scarlet shall receive a handtcme premium, and that no

THE OPENING DAY. 41

subscriptions to Hunt, Poultry or Covert funds, or any
similar vexatious exactions, shall be for a moment enter-
tained ; while any servant receiving a fee shall be sum-
marily dismissed. AMio shall say that these are not
sterling advantages — and that the promotion of such an
undertakins; does not recommend itself to all who would
see the love of sport diffused, and its conditions
popularised ? To-day the entire spectacle was provided,
a whole audience present and gratified, and a bevy of
actors played their parts ; but no grist came to any mill,
no handsome proceeds fell into the pockets of enterprising
promoters. Still, much was done to prove what might
be effected in this direction — and the spectacle was as
successful as it was suggestive. A fox was handsomely
found ; was hunted for more than an hour coram omni-
Jms ; and was duly killed, for the edification of the
hundreds — without transgressing for a moment beyond
the boundaries of the chosen arena. That the performance
should have been thus duly retained within bounds was
on this occasion of course onl}^ a matter of happy fortune
— but it shows what might be done here b}' judicious and
competent management.

Having catered thus for popular requirements, the
]\Iaster took his hounds on to Scraptoft; whence they
showed their followers a thorough hunting run of an hour.
Though a ring, it was over beautiful country ; and ended
at a drain near Barkl)}' Holt.

CHAPTER V.

MEN AND MANNERS.

^^I^^HE best of Friday, November Otli, witli the
all :o Quorn was after lunclieon time (whenever that
sJJC, light but reviving repast may be hekl to have
liaJ its pL^ce) ; and in chase of a fox who had ah*eady
been run for forty minutes. The forenoon had been
marked merely by such flicts as John 0' Gaunt owning
only one fox, and that fox being haplessly chopped, by
Cold Newton being colder than ever, by a Friday field
assuminq: with deliiihted enthusiasm all its old turbu-
lence, by the Master having a most difticult and anything
but enviable time of it at the Coplow in consequence,
and by the perversity of late which put a shortrunning
cub under the noses of hounds instead of one of the
straifi:liti2:oin2: rovers which also set forth from this famous
stronghold.

So the order was issued for Hungerton Foxholes ; a
fox left this in view ; and after about three-quarters of an
hour spent in circling very cheerily over some of the best
of the Beeby and Hungerton neighbourhood, he was pro-
nounced to have gone to ground under a hovel.

But while Reynard was being sought with spade and

MEN AND MANNERS. 43

pick, lie was quietly liatcliing liis plan of escape. The
drain he had entered was to all appearance a wet and
uncomfortable refuge — from which, " poor thing," it was
only a matter of charity to rescue him, at any cost to
himself. Somehow he found a dry corner, and, still
better, marked anotlier bolthole at tlie back of the hovel.
This done he composed himself for a quarter of an hour
to get his wind and choose his opportunity — then slipped
quietly out, and stole stealthily away, evading all eyes
but a pair trained to keep watch at the sternest of all
schools (the sea). But for this keen look-out to wind-
ward, the huntsman and his emploj/es might have quar-
ried to the end of the claim, and, — as has been known to
happen in similar instances — have met with a blank
yield. As it happened, the miners were quickly roused,
and the hounds as quickly laid on — at the spot where
Reynard's somewhat draggled brush had disappeared
through a hedge of stupendous growth and thickness.
Mr. Otlio Paget bored vigorously into the thorns — and,
after being retained half way for a much longer period
than most good people dwell over their grace at dinner,
wriggled out piecemeal on the other side. Two others
accepted the blessing and returned thanks as they too
scraped through the blinding thicket — the rest cruised
down in search of some opening more suited to their own
fair faces and new November outfit. But as well ^.-aze
up at a wall of a prison-yard as seek mercy at the hands
of a ten-year-old hedge left uncut on the best land in
Keyham parish. The gallants who had laughed so gaily
at the thorny plunge of young temerity now found them-

44 THE BEST SEASON" ON RECORD.

selves penned up in confusion and sliame. Not all. For
youth and blood were again fortliconiing to serve tliem —
and found its cliance where any ordinary jury of hard
riders would have promptly declared that none was
possible. A tree had been cut away ; and according to
the custom which creates all the timbered embrasures in
the fences of the country, its place had been taken by
three stoat rails. Lapse of time had brought the boughs
of the bullfinch almost together overhead — added to
which, there was a wide ditch on the nearside, and the
approach was discouragingly ui^hill. A ^'' certainfTj ! '' was
the united if unuttered verdict. But a " certainty " is
attached to the leadership of a forlorn hope — and many
a man has come out of even that venture unscathed.
The two forms of hazardous venture are dissimilar only
in degree — the lesser to the great. But the same spirit
prompts, tlie same material makes up, the man who, not
in ignorance or inexperience but in jovial recklessness, is
ready, as he would term it, to " have a shy " — while you
and I curl up and look askance, as if we saw neither the
opportunity nor each other. Well, the sturdy brown
horse jumped as high as he could, and as far as he could ;
the top rail broke under his girths — his head held him
up for a wJiile, his shouhlers helped him to rise again,
and he carried his Ijold master safely on — leaving the
place almost as unattractive as before. Praised be Allah!
Another of the same family was still at hand — somewhat
chagrined, perhaps, that the pride of place had been so
rudely taken from him by his big brother. But that no
want of manners should be imputed to him, or to the

MEX AND MANNERS. 45

family name, lie left nothing Avliatcver to stand in the
way of all who might wish to follow. Such kindly self-
sacrifice, however, deserved better fate than that he
should have to pursue his charger for two long fields
before the latter would consent to be returned to him.

Meanwhile the fu2,-itive from beneath the hovel was
making the most of his new lease of life. Threading
hedgerows and plantations by the brookside, he gained
yard after yard upon his clamouring pursuers, and at the
village of Beeby found himself quite capable of once more
flinging down the glove on the open. He should have
been stiff and crippled with fatigue and wet. But his
heart seemed to grow stouter, and his limbs work freer,
with danger realised and love of life fully roused. In a
word, he ran straighter, and hounds pressed him far
harder now than when he was first forced to run. From
the village of Beeby he led them for a final twenty minutes
as bright and brisk as — well, the beer of the Beeby
brewery just passed. Over the hillside for Scraptoft
were pretty grass fields, with some twenty men racing-
over them in the blinding sunlight — hounds glancing in
sight only now and then like flying-fish in air. The very
acme of a Leicestershire burst is — it always seems to me
— when liounds go a little quicker than you can — yet
when there is free space for every man and every horse
to be doing his best, irrespective of others right and left
or even in front. We don't see this every day. Either
scent or country is generally lacking. But it is very
delightful when it comes — and then, and then only, does
a good hunter seem to be really at his best.

46 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

A sweet valley runs up to Keyliam — tlie grass as rank
and the ditches as grossly overgrown as if the meadows
had not been stocked (as I believe they had not) for a
year past — and all hands scurried on as if a silver cup
awaited the foremost. Gladly would we have seen one,
filled with any cool compound, ere we had dipped under
.Keyiiam village, and mounted the hill beyond. Horses
were blowing freel}^ and hounds were a full field ahead —
Crash, clatter — what has happened ? A dark horse down
in the middle of a field, and a man surely gone to ground,
somewhere. No, there's part of him at least has done
being rolled over — a round cheerful face, quite pleased
with the situation, and leisurely bringing the rest of the
remains out after it. Of good hard stuff must that man
be made, I warrant me — and none the less that he rode
so forward in no scarlet robe, nor, I daresay, nourishes
his nerve and muscle on vintage '74 (the milk, they tell
me, of the Melton dairy of to-day).

But how the Quorn lady pack gave other passing proof
of its quality by tracking its beaten quarry down a road
and at length chasing him to ground in a rabbit hole, was
l^retty enough in itself, but gives little more to tell. Thus
it need merely be adiled, for the information ot the many
whose gauge of a run is its " point," that all the work
and incident of the pursuit in question resulted in its end-
ing at the very place from which it had started — Hun-
gerton Foxholes, to wit.

On Monday morning last, November 12tli, we first
perceived that winter was upon us. A dense cold fog
pervaded the valleys ; hoar frost had crystallised the

MEN AXD MANNERS. 47

Ledges, had laid a tliick silvery crust on tlie still green
leaves, and now proceeded to play tlie same trick on our
weatherworn locks as we wended a hard and slippery
way to covert. The Quorn meet was at Wartnaby ; and
here, as soon as the higher and usually colder ground was
reached, blue sky w^as overhead, and a bright sun bade
circulation and spirits reassert themselves. There is no
pleasing novelty in frozen fingers ; and a foxhunter's toes
are his most assailable members. The miser}^ that intense
cold calls forth in his extremities is apt to suffuse and
stagnate his whole being — rendering neither his company
nor his appearance a medium of jo}' to others. Some of
us are of course more easily made cold, as some of us are
more readily made cross — or have already been made
uglier — than others. It may be possible to combat these

tendencies, especially the last . But this is a subject

we need not open here : one section of these disagree-
ables, the cold, is tolerably certain to pursue us, with
what degree of pertinacity remains to be seen, during the
comino; winter.

Monday's was altogether a hill morning, on the heights
of ITolwell Mouth and Wartnaby. Hounds had to work
as best they could, amid ironworks and waggonways more
in keeping with Durham than Leicestershire — and if the
scene had any fascination of its own it was to be found,
not in a very meagre pursuit, not in the gangs of yellow
fustianed workmen or their screaming clattering ballast
train, but in the merry sunshine and the beauty-laden
carriao;es that formed a show so rare and dazzlinp^.

So much for the morning. The afternoon began in

^8 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

little better fashion ; but, under the influence of sturdy
perseverance and a warming- sun, improved steadily till
quite a nice hunting run was evolved.

The frost never quite left the ground ; and, while a fox
contented himself with running the hedgerows and the
northern slopes of Old Dalby and neighbourhood, hounds
could just work out his twisting career with a certain
amount of assistance. Moreover, he persisted in choosing
his way as much as possible over cold and " enterprise-
less " plough that seemed to laugh to scorn the zest and
ambition of a very ride-loving field. Thus, it was only
after he had travelled back by Saxelby Spinney, that he
was forced to shape his route over grass ; and then, by
easy stages, they hunted him to AVelb}^ Fishpond — forc-
ing him out towards Kettleby Village. To shorten a
long and uneventful story — a nice twenty mhiutes at
good hunting pace took them back some three or four
miles by Saxelby Spinney and Grimston Gorse to, and
beyond, the outskirts of Dalby Wood — after whicli they
hunted on for another mile or so through Lord Aylesford's
Covert, losing their fox at the end of about an hour and
forty minutes' hard and often uphill work. The run
back had to be ridden in a sunny mist, which made
hounds indistinguishable a field away — though their
music might have been heard a mile in the still frosty
air. Fences could not be judged at fifty yards distance ;
and men were apparently content to follow each other in
a string, the length and dilatoriness of which amply testi-
fied to the increasing strength of our daily parade. It
is no longer like October — when you might wait and

MEN AND MANNERS. 49

crane as loni^ as you liked, and make np all the lost
ground again by as many minutes' hard galloping.
Already — at least in such a strip of ground as that
beneath Wartnaby, with its many gullies and old thorn
tree hedges — it is quite enough to get behind once, to
ensure your maintaining a position in the rearguard for
the rest of the journey.

The later arrivals at jMelton, by the way, since Kirby
Gate, are Capt. Smith, ]\lr. J. Behrens, Mr. Gerald Paget,
Mr, Q. D. Hume, and Mr. G. Lambton.

The frost of ]\Ionday repeated itself on Tuesday, and
established itself on AVednesday to a degree that, though
it did not quite prohibit hunting, put both Coles Lodge
with the Cottesmore and Waltham with the Belvoir in a
far colder and less attractive light than either the merits
of the fixtures or the time of year deserve.

On Wednesday indeed the farmers could " cart man-
gold " without their waggon wheels making any impres-
sion on the soil — hardly the consistency we wish Mother
Earth to have attained when our turn comes for sub-
mitting our feeble frames to her kindly embrace.

One small paragraph I may be allowed to interpolate
— not to record a matter of history, but as a humble
plea in the interest of us all. Gratuitously maybe, and
certainly with no authority beyond that of a sense of
pressing necessity, I would implore fellow-sportsmen who
hunt in the Shires — where the evil is more pronounced
because many times multiplied — to pay more, ten times
more, attention to the farmers' property than they have
ever been accustomed, or taught, to do ; and esi^ecialJy

50 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

to sjKire seeds and wJieat. The latter it Is easy enough
to see and generally to avoid, even with advantage to
ourselves. But seeds — which one cannot but be glad to
think are now growing on many hundreds of acres in the
form of young grass for permanent pasture — these are
much less readily discerned, and are apt to be treated
with a lamentable want of consideration. Not every
hunting-man was bred in a neighbourhood of open fields,
or brought up in daily contact with the healthy techni-
calities of agriculture. But to whatever sphere he may
have been born, he owes it to himself, he owes It equally
to bis comrades, and he owes it a hundredfold more to
the m.en over whose ground he rides — to stoop to the
acquirement of at least the power of distinguishing
between the crops he can damage and the hind that will
take no harm. Every articled pupil in the craft of fox-
hunting should at all events be competent to recognise
at a glance wheat, " seeds," and " winter beans " — and
having acquired this rudimentary knowledge ought to
be prepared to put it in force by avoiding them on every
possible occasion. A man may by chance jump into a
field of either kind unawares ; but, finding himself there,
can at least ride the furrow or cling to the hedgeside,
besides (in all unselfishness) deterring others from follow-
ing his unlucky example. Wheat is, perhaps, less easily
harmed than the other two crops, and many good
authorities will even argue that it is altogether Imper-
vious to injury from this cause. But farmers at any
rate are all more or less susceptible on the point of its
being needlessly ridden over — if only on the score of Its

MEN AND MANNERS.

51

appearance for weeks afterwards. And it certainly does
not behove us to welgli tlie pros and cons of tlie case for
them, or balance our convenience against their established
opinion concerning their own property. As to young
clover and other grasses, and still more sprouting beans,
they cannot be too carefully shunned ; and not only
is it a paramount duty on the part of all hunting-men
personally to fight shy of them, but it is indeed a matter
of urgent necessity, as well as of self-interest, that they
should insist that their second horsemen (by nature the
most reckless, by habit the most careless, of the followers
of the chase) also take heed of where they ride. The
latter class might well (as the master of the Quorn
recently pointed out) assist to minimise damage and
annoyance, instead of adding to either. And by care of
the farmers' interests they will very greatly serve those
-of their own employers.

K 2

CHAPTER VI.

BAG GRAVE.

^1^ MUST be allowed to go back beyond tlie storm-
(^m^ beaten experiences of the past few days for the
^f|p_^ main subject of my weekly theme. Till the rain
clonds disperse, till the driving wind stays its hand, and
weather and barometer return to steadier courses, we
dare scarcely hope for a renewal of sport. Already the
ground is wetter than it usually is in January ; every
furrow is a small canal, every hollow is a pool ; and
brooks and rivers have been constantly over their banks.
At present the wet slush has little holding power, and
liorses move through it easily enough. But as the ground
sucks the water in, and the turf, as it soon will, becomes
like peat over a bog, we shall speedily hear the old cry
of " The (leepcsf season on record."

Friday, November IGth, witli the Quorn. — The very
name of Bairsrrave Hall on the fixture-cards could not
but su2:2:est vivid memories of the late General Burnabv.
How much more then did thought recur in this direc-
tion as hounds once more clustered in front of the grey
building, whence for years past the kindliest and most
hospitable of men was wont to offer greeting and cordial

BAGGRAVE. 53

Avelconie. In General Burnaby the Quorn hunt lost one
of its most zealous supporters — hundreds of us lost a
staunch unselfish friend. If a kindness could be done,
he was the one to seize the chance of doing it. If a
neighbour, or even an acquaintance, could be served,
General Burnaby's time, interest, and talent were at his
disposal ; and trouble, however prolonged, at however
great a cost of convenience to himself, was no more
grudged than if the service in question had been merely
a grateful filling up of idle moments. One of the busiest
men in England, whether as soldier, politician, landlord,
or country gentleman. General Burnaby was in all
capacities and at all times quite as fully occupied in
forwarding the aims and interests of others, as even in
pushing on the various and comprehensive schemes that
he made his own. ]\Iost of the latter, indeed, were works
directly designed to benefit others — witness, for instance,
the Annual Military Tournament (in aid of the Cambridge
Soldiers' Orphans' Asylum) which under his originating
talent and management has achieved such a vast position.
His capable mind and busy genius gave him an easy
mastery over every subject he undertook, and over all
who might be called upon to work with him. In the
same w^ay, every man who came across him in the
ordinary course of country life found in him a courteous
considerate comrade and friend — and now esteems his
death a grievous personal loss. Of the various stirring
runs that Ave have in recent years witnessed from the
Prince of Wales Gorse (the first sod of which was turned
by our gracious and sport-loving Prince on the occasion

51. THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

of the monster meet at Baggrave, March, 1871) it has
been my happy lot to witness and recount several. The
gorse itself was nipped by frost when the icy hand of
death was already placing its grasp round the heart of
him who had planted it. The rest of the little covert
remains in the shape of the original spinney — and we re-
visited it to-day with something of a chill at our hearts.

But many of you to whose lot it has fallen to attend a
soldier's funeral know well the military custom by which,
as soon as the volleys are fired, and a handful or two of
earth have rattled on the coffin lid of a comrade, the
mourners fall in, the ranks reform, the band — that but a
few minutes before was wailing forth the most touching
of all sad melodies, the Dead March in " Saul " — at once
strikes merrily up to a lively march — heads are raised —
and we all step gaily out, laying aside the recent sorrow,
and ready again to make the most of all that is bright
in life.

So though there was many a sad thought and many a
mournful mention of the dead as the scene of the Quorn
Hunt Picture was reproduced on Friday, men's hearts
rose eagerly and joyously as ever, directly the scream
of the whipper-in caught their ears and they were called
upon to ride once more on the track of a fox from the
Baggrave covert. A right good fox too ; and one that
suffered nothing by comparison with his predecessors.
On tlie contrary, he Initiated the occupancy of the new
resident with singular felicity — bidding us learn that a
successor is aptly and worthily carrying out the dearest
wishes of him whom we have lost. (The covert, by the

BAGGRAVE. 55

way, is to be replanted; and the Prince of Wales
" Gorse " will in future exist in the form of less perish-
able blackthorn).

Yes, a brace of foxes were found in the Spinney — one
fell into hounds' mouths at once, the other had to bend
his flight whither he could, and make his point after-
wards as opportunity might offer. So, as he broke away
towards Barkby Holt, we were released from our station
at the opposite corner, to labour round over rough ridge-
and-furrow — wonderinc: the while whether we should
ever see hounds again, whether if we did our horses
would have any Avind left in them, whether labour was
very cheap in the days when the tillers of the soil thus
distorted the face of the earth, whether we had not
chosen the wrong way round, with a dozen other relevant
and irrelevant speculations. For ridge-and-furrow that
is deep enough to reduce each stride of a horse to a
limited unit, like a note of a piano as compared to that
of fiddle or flute, inflicts on the rider a prolonged period
of thought and anxiety that is positively distressing.
Fast horses and slow horses, short backs and long backs,
good shoulders and bad — all seemed to make about equal
speed over the chopping sea — and now we had circled
the covert to find hounds driving up the wind a field
away. For a few^ minutes they beat even the men who
cut their way to them as they bent — and this, though
neither bullfinch, rail, nor high-built fence was shirked
in favour of the ready gates. Your humble servant
happened, by what chance matters not, to be brought
up alongside one of these fences as the rush came on,

50

THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

affording- sucli an opportunity of observing tlie mimic
battle as is seldom given to a sharer in the fray. One
would have thought that the sternest scene of warfare
was being enacted, so determined and desperate did most
of the combatants seem, as two and three abreast they
charged home — with hats tightly pressed down, brows
darkening, teeth hard set, and eyeballs starting out of
their heads. They had not a smile among them ! To

^ssrgg^g^i^^j'^l^?^^^:^^

DETERMINED AND DESPERATE.

do or die, was the single Mrittcn expression, even on
features seldom seen otherwise than moving in merri-
ment. The veteran, the beginner, the pilot, the follower
— all alike looked serious, glum and defiant. They were
raking down-hill at a rasping fence; habit and experience
not only bade tliem concentrate all their energies, but
whispered that a ftiilure might involve unwelcome conse-
cj[uences — and in the preoccupation of the moment they
deemed themselves alone and unobserved. Mark the

BAGGRAVE. 57

change the moment the rapids were shot, the rocks left
behmd. A seraphic smile in almost every instance
softened the stern and rigid features. Once they found
themselves in smooth water, tight-drawn lips and
wrinkled brows relaxed, light came into their eyes — and
ere a dozen strokes had been accomplished men were
themselves again, genial, warm and careless beings.

Suddenly there was a pause ; the hunted fox was found
to have been headed right back to the place of starting ;
and, with flices already flushed and hot, the field clustered
once more at Baggrave Spinney. Away again five
minutes later, over the grass fields behind the Hall, and
so to the osier bed beyond. To gallop through this, and
cross its brook by a bridge, was one safe route. To shoot
what is known as Carr Bridge involved a fiiw hundred
yards detour ; but gave the next mile (all uphill as it
was to either division) on tolerable turf instead of on
soppy plough. Medio tidhsuims ibis applied well enough
to the huntsman's course ; for he brought both hindlegs
after him with onl}^ a scramble ; while the three next
comers, who would gladly have availed themselves of
the lead, remained spurring and vociferating on the bank,
till after all they had to pocket their pride and dash off
to follow the others over the little bridge. There was a
capital scent, or hounds could not have crossed those
cold wet ploughs so rapidly {for even on the best scent-
ing days of this autumn the arable has scarcely ever
carried a serviceable scent). At the high road on the
brow (Queniboro' to Tilton) the parties reunited, and the
pack, for a moment, divided. But almost immediately

58 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

lioiinds and liorsemen were all set going again, in fiilt
swing down tlie grass lands of the Twyford parish —
and this was the best of the burst. A goodly many —
23rominent among whom Mr. and ]\Irs. Cecil Chaplin,
Mr. Broclvlehurst, Mr. Pennington, Capt. Smith, Lord
]\Ianners, M. Deschamps, Capt. Boyce, Capt. Ashton,
with the Master and others (not omitting a farmer, Mr.
Gilson, on a slashing young one), were helping to make
history repeat itself — rode fast in the track of hounds, as
the latter struck the Asliby and Twyford brook at the
only point at which it is fordable. Into the adjoining-
road some high, but easily broken, palisades offered a
better chance of keeping near tlio racing pack than a
tempting gate on the left. The next field had its ox-rail
well hidden on the farther side ; but an oxer down hill
is not necessarily very awesome — albeit the deep gallop-
ing was beginning to tell, and the rail went off like a big-
gun as the hero of a hundred fights came heavily on it.
There is no more curious feature in foxhunting than the
constant faculty evinced by the fox of taking his followers
a i)racticable line even over the most difficult country.
Again the chase struck a bridge — the only opening for a
mile, by which riders could possibly have crossed a
deep unjumpable bottom. And only two fields further,
hounds turned at right angles alongside — and so avoided
— a double oxer that no horse in Leicestershire could
have covered.

Thus a merry half hour brought us to Ashby Pastures
— the strong covert of Thorpe Trussels having been left
just to the right. In a quarter of an hour more, luncheon

BAGGRAVE. 50

and congratulations were being interchanged, by tlie side
of a drain close to Cream Gorse ; and about ten minutes
later — as the huntsman was about to throw hounds into
the gorse in search of a fresh fox — the run one bolted of
his own accord. A stout-hearted hardy fellow, the latter
went bravely forward ; but this time preferred the colder
plough to the grass that had been made so warm for
him. So, slowly and Avitli little incident — if we except
the wide string of catastrophes that decked a broad
watercourse on the way — he was once more ran ta
ground (about a mile from Melton), and there left.

Saturday, the 1 7th, was, as you remember, a gruesome
day ; and if fate took you out either with the Belvoir or
the Quorn, you found little to reward you for facing
the snow and rain.

Monday, the 10th, with the last-named pack at Rat-
cliffe-on-the-Wreake, was again stormy and scentless.
A^ery little could in consequence be done with the young
foxes at AValton Thorns ; though late in the day a
weakly one was easily killed from Lord Aylesford's
Covert, leaving unfortunately his bloodstain in Grim-
ston Gorse.

Tuesday, the 20th, was sharp, cold, and rough, but by
all accounts more favourable to scent. The Quorn (who
would seem to have come in for all the sport so far) had
an excellent forty minutes from a little corner of their
country (beyond Leicester) into that of Sir Bache Cunard.
They found at Narborougli Bog (though how a fox could
have found a dry kennel in that morass after the recent
floods would be puzzling indeed, but that foxes are sa

00 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

often known to liarbour on little islets of ground which
they liave to swim to reach) ; and they ran an excellent
line to Peatling.

Wednesday, the 21st, was, in point of weather, comfort,
and sport, a more than fairly representative day of the
current week. Rain and tempest followed us to covert,
mid persecuted us at intervals throughout the day —
culminating in the fierce anomaly of a November
thunderstorm, which cleared the air at once for a boat of
hot sunshine. With such wild contrarieties of weatlier,
how could there be sport ? And accordingly there was
none — or very little. The ride, or drive, from Melton to
Croxton Park is habitually one of the coldest experiences
of the week. To-day it possessed the additional attrac-
tion of being one of the wettest. Five miles further to
draw a covert — "and yet we were not happy." But
discontent had no place when covert-coats could be
stripped off in such cheery company as ever constitutes
the field with the Duke of Rutland's hounds, and when
that beautiful pack is busy in covert, bidding us be ready
to Go. Rut I have no excuse for dwelling over Wed-
nesday. The Coston Covert fox clung closely to the
Immediate neighbourhood of his home, till he could get
back to the main earth. This, however, is excellently
arranged, so that — as we have seen on a dozen occasions
— a terrier can alwa3's be brought into play. And this
time we got as fjir as Buckminster, under all difficulties.
The entire field had spent a considerable period during
the run tightly packed in some hovels — while thunder
growled overhead and rain came down like a waterspout.

BAGGEAVE. 0 1

One section of tliem discovered, after leading- as many
horses under shelter as their hovel would accommodate,
that they had overloooked the presence of a bull in an
obscure corner. The bull was a young and very peace-
ably disposed beast ; and kept his temper admirably till
a horse backed on to him — when he set to work with a
will to cut his way out. The horses got frightened ; so
did the men. The former began to kick, the latter to
choke on their half-swallowed luncheon — and, in brief,
there was the devil to pay. The noise was alarming ;
while tlie bull stuck steadily to his task, and at length
issued in triumph from under the girths of one of the
best-looking hunters from Grantham. Beyond the shock
to the nervous system of the company generally, and
a few sounding kicks that kept time to the prods ad-
ministered by the bull in his passage out, I believe no ill
results ensued ; though I doubt if any of the party will
care to be included in similar society again.

An afternoon fox from Buckminster ^^■as afterwards
followed smartly over the heath country for three or
four miles— leaving tlie ^lelton division to wend a weary
way homeward nearly from Stoke Rochfort.

CHAPTEE VII.

BARKBY GORSE TO TILTOK.

R. BROMLEY DA-
VENPORT, your
vivid lines once
stood nie in good
stead — when you
set every hunting-
man in Enghmd
aglow with your
prophetic idyll of
" A gallop from
Ranksboro' Gorse,"

'J and in the foUow-

: J%^ ing week my feeble

^'^''l^>'35^^^fcl^^'''''V^^?^''''^-^'^' pen was exercised
■^^^^m^W^^ '/■' .'■■"'' ■■• in telling how the

augury had been
fulfilled, tlie allegory reduced to fact, in the great Ranks-
boro' Run of January 13th, 1877. There must surely be
something in the coincidence that now again I had been
revelling overnight in tlie power and thrill of your pic-
ture of Foxhunting (painted a few months ago in the

BARKBY GORSE TO TILTOX. 63

Nineteentli Century) ; and tlie very next Jay brought
forth Hvlng illustration, in fit sequel to your stirring flight
of fancy. May your spirit be with nie while I strive to
sketch the incidents of this last great gallop that you
have seemed to prompt. Other men say they have
seen no such run for three years. Certainly I, in my
humble capacity of recorder, have assisted at nothing
like it in seasons lately past.

The morning of Friday, November 23rd, was bright,
sharp, and sunny. Rime frost still lingered by the road-
side, while the road itself still remained in what miirht
be termed rattling condition for the many carriages that
rolled into Rearsby Village — the halfway house twixt
Leicester and Melton — the meet of Quorn, and the place
of gathering of all who could ride or drive from either
town and from the countr;/ between. The busy
merchant, the smart Meltonian, tlie thriving tradesman,
the struggling farmer, the county magnate, the soldier
on leave, ^vith many another of lofty and lowly grade,
mingled to form the largest meet of the early season.
Brougham, victoria, buggy, ponjtrap and taxcart — not
excepting many samples of that wondrous Leicester
conveyance wherein one couple look straight to their
front, while immediately behind them another luuk
straight in each other's fjice, as if equally ready to light,
flirt, or pla}' cribbagc — all brought their burden of beauty
or their contribution to the chase. But, apart from the
social aspect and variety of the scene, enhanced, as it
was, by the quiet loveliness of the morning and the
picturesque attributes of Islw Woodcock's pretty resi-

Ci THE BEST SEASON ON KECOHD.

dence amid the elm trees, there was something in the air
that spoke of sterhng vigorous sport. Why else should
one and all ot" us — knowing little, if anything, of the
mystery of scent, and daily learning only that we know
less — have exclaimed " There'll be a run to-day? " The
spirit of instinct chimed in with the fostering wdsh —
and the outcome was more than we had dared to hope.

The day began with a pleasant five-and-twenty
minutes' ring from Gaddesby Spinney, performed in the
closely fenced area of Barsby parish, and ended by the
fox getting to ground at Queniborough Spinney, close to
which he was found. In this little hunt alone we had
jumped enough fences to constitute a day's work for a
horse in many countries ; but it was early yet for second
horses, and many a man forbore to change — who would
gladly have had that first freshness under him wdien, a
little while hence, the struggle came. Casualties both to
horse and man occurred, even in this short pursuit.
They are never pleasant subjects for record. But the
accident by which Lord Lanesborough lost a valuable
horse was as curious as it was untoward. While
galloping down a turnip-tield (one of perhaps three
pieces of plough crossed during the day), and looking
over the hedge at the hounds running beyond, he rode
chest-on against the handle of a horse-hoe, which
pierced his horse to the heart — the shock sending the
rider on to his face on the ground. The horse stood for
one moment over his master, deluging him with blood ;
then, rearing straight on end, fell dead beside him.

Barkby Gorse, a sipiare covert of some half-dozen

BARKBY GQKSE TO TILTON. ;65

acres, immediately adjoins tlie well-known Barkby Holt,
a green and muddy lane alone separating the two. The
slightest possible breeze was blowing from the west ;
and the Master marshalled his field on the windward
side. Not until every rider had taken his place, were
hounds thrown into covert ; thus the good fox at home
was well on his legs before the time of trial came, and
then he was free to travel whither he would upon the
wind. The first cheer starts him off; the first scream
sets the lively ladies of Quorndon romping on his foot-
prints. Two ant-hilly grass fields give them room to
settle and time to close up — while, as thickly packed as
antelope on the veldt, the herd of horsemen bound over
the low rail fencing and pick their way hurriedly, or
gallop right recklessl}^, over the knotted turf. Now the
pent throng squeezes through a gate, to cross the one
acre of fallow that tliey will see for many a mile ; now
they dribble one by one through a low gap that we
recognize only too fearfully and well. A deep little
ditch is set under the grass at the exact distance to
catch a free jumping horse — and often as we have had to
cross it in hurrying away from Barkby Holt, Ave have
never known the tiny but too effectual trap to be with-
out its victims. The ^Master and Mr. Gerald Paget are
claimed for its own to-day — and a fall in such a gallop
would seem to be fatal to loss of place more certainly
even tlian in a National Hunt Steeplechase ! * For

"" Eeaders will lemeiaber that in the Grand National Hunt Steeplechase
(1883) in the neighbourhood of jMelton, v,ith twenty-three starters, even the
winner fell once, and refused once.

F

GG

THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

several fields the good chestnut that should be carrying
one of them is to be viewed rising gallantly at each fence
in turn — but, his fore-leg being through the bridle rein,
turnins: a terrible summersault over each.

We had seen this morning (it is but 12.50 yet) that
hounds could run even before the hoar frost was oft'— but

'• TURNING A TERRIBLE SUMMERSAULT OVER EACH."

we were scarcely prepared for a scent so ravishing as now.
Foot-people are holloaing lustily over the brow towards
Baggrave. Hounds want their help no more than they
regard their distraction; but, swinging towards the sound,
dash through a flock of sheep as if coursing their fox by
sight. The silly sheep run after them to the fence, and
block the w^ay till the pack has earned a field to the good.
Mr. Hugo Campbell crashes through the timber the
moment they give him opening; while Count Kinsky
makes his first appearance in public in his well-known
character of pioneer, almost simultaneously on the right.

BARK BY GOnSK TO TILTOX. 67

]Mr. Hames dives sturdily tliroiigli tlie next bullfinch ; and
so, by friendly offices, the way is made plain and easy —
and all we want at present are legs to go faster. The
pack, meanwhile, might be going upon wings. Yonder is
Baggrave Spinney, and yonder are hounds just disappear-
ing into it — while, a full furlong behind, the foremost
riders are looking twice at a strong post-and-rail. Second
thoughts, however, follow rapidly on second looks — and
it is anything but a terrible place after all. The hunts-
man cuts at once through the middle ride of the little
covert ; several men strain round the lower side ; but
those on the upper have a straighter course and a better
view. " Are they through ? " " Not yet — but they very
soon iviJl he^ if this fox is worth his salt." [Worth his
salt, indeed ! He will put your strength to the test, ere
he has done with you, gallant gentlemen.) There they
go — see those white streaks flashing under the far hedge.
Half the pack only — for a fresh fox before their noses has
turned the other half from the line. The horn, with its
unmistakeable forrard-aicay, catches up many of these
stragglers — but, strive as they will, theirs wdll yet be a
long stern chase. Already the leading couples are half
across the park, ere even the readiest gallopers have
slipped on from the covert, and cut the corner-fence
opposite the Hall. Again are foot-people shouting ; and
again is Keynard turned a hundred yards (the utmost he
will diverge through his five-mile course). " Left ! Left ! !
or the park wire will hold you ! " This is a moment when
'tis useful to know the country — though more often such
knowledge is a snare, a source of shirking, and a fruitful

68 THE BKST SEASOX OX EECORD.

cause of needless terror. Tlirougli the lieavy gate and
over the rough and broken pasture — the already slender
band of riders are bearing uphill towards the little pack,
the latter beating horses yard by yard. A clean oxer, a
scratchy bullfinch where the ox-rail lies broken, or a single
flight of timber — there are three courses open to you,
some fifty yards apart. The Count seizes the first, Capt.
Smith, Mr. A. Brocklehurst, and M. Deschamps the last ;
while three or four others squeeze under the tree, and
recover their dangling hats as best they may. A steep
sudden dip in the ground, with a grass-covered rivulet
running below — a horse half blown, with an indifferent
mouth and a pronounced aversion to anything flapping
about him — these scarcely make up the time and circum-
stance that we would willingly select for the pastime of
fishing for chimney-pots. (Oh, who will join a society —
it must be influential and numerous — for donning caps,
for dofting swallowtails in favour of lengthy flaps, and for
relegating breeches tapes to — the provinces?)

Now again the going, though deep and tiring, is
smooth and lair. The great grass fields are some forty
acres apiece ; the ridge-and-fnrrow for a wonder lies all
the right way ; each valley has an easy fence, each gentle
rise discloses hounds just gliding over the next — or gives
the rear guard a similar glance at those riding in the
van. Gallop as you can, and squeeze as you will, you
may keep pace with the tail hounds that left Baggrave
witli or behind 3'ou ; but not an inch will you or they
gain on those racing couples in front. There is little to
tell of these two miles after Baggrave covert — as far as

, BARKBY GORSE TO TILTON. 69

distant ken and immediate aftertalk warrant niy story —
beyond that galloping, ceaseless, grinding, galloping,
Ibrmed the essence and criterion. On the broad hillside
between Lowesby and Quenby hounds flash momentarily
beyond a smeuse— one old lady (Dahlia, I am told),
alone striking through, to cross a deep boggy bottom
which a dastard memory, rising only to the call of
cowardice, recognizes readily. It might have come right
in the stride, and been left to us as a mere harmless
trifle by those who went before — led, as we should have
been, by the ex-Carabineer just appearing over the low
stile adjacent, and by the huntsman now rolling over the
same. What do we And ? Twenty men huddled in a
corner — forty more flocking thither. A plantation on
the left, a cross fence on the right — new timber in front,
where once was an open chasm, of itself quite equal to
putting us down in years gone by — as more than one
can sorrowfully vouch. Ten yards of low plashed hedge
completes the corner ; the gulf is of unknown breadth,
of well-known depth ; the opposite bank rises precipi-
tately ; the huntsman's cheer has thrown hounds forward
after the yellow bitch — and we don't like the prospect at
all ! But the last week or so has brought back a man
whose office in life — after the well-being of his master
and the well-doing of the latter's young horses — would
seem to lie in assisting us all, in difficulties and out of
difficulties. So once ao:ain Downs is to the front. The
chestnut four-year-old accepts the task right willingly ;
jumps as fjir as he can ; and, now on his knees, now on
his nose, finally on his legs^ recovers everything but his

70 THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

wind — wliIcL, or as mucli of it as prudence will allow, is
foini 1 to be exhausted after another half mile. The
rector of Stonesby, scarcely needing this encouragement,
drops his chestnut in turn into the pit, and he too
scrambles up the bank without a hill. The huntsman's
bay mare does equally well for herself and rider; but
also does quite her share in churning up the quagmire.
Capt. Smith is down ; M. Descharaps is not ; Mr. Pen-
nington falls ; Mr. Brocklehurst keeps his legs, and so
does Capt. Ashton. One after another now they come
rolling over — each casualty conducing to the next — the
crowd fuming and fretting almost in silence (we are
gentle in our savagery in "Leicestershire) — and hounds
are fleeting far away. To avoid the choking breach,
Mr. Fred. Gosling turns over the side fence ; and, over-
grown and untempting as the gully seems in its upward
course, he finds it after all much easier than where the
crowd is hindering itself The same result attends the
efforts of other searchers lower down. But all this,
direct and indirect, unavoidable and part of a chapter of
accidents, is taking time— time that cannot be regained,
till all the object of recovering it is gone — time that, as
distinct from hurry, constitutes the economy, indeed the
basis of riding a gallop to hounds. Meanwhile there are
now thirteen cou})le a full half mile ahead — speeding
onward like the brief moments that have to counter-
balance and quicken the many dull days of existence.
Forrard, you beauties ! Life is happiness while we
can hang on your skirts o'er the merry green grass.
" Open the gate, sir, if you can ; or take the young

BARKBY GORSE TO TILTON. 71

one's neck off it, and turn liim round to tlie wind ! "
'Tis seldom we ride this beautiful line, by the side of the
Lowesby brook, where the fences are old and half
decayed, and the turf so sound, " Hilly and wet," we
may term it, under the test of a twenty minutes' race,
and a start that we cannot keep. As a matter of fact,
the ground is excellent riding — but hounds have no
w^eight to carry — and, reader, your tailor will tell you (in
language more delicate and acceptable, no doubt) that
you do not girth as you did in 1873. Your groom (who
has always a turn for humour, if allowed to indulge in
anything so disrespectful) might term it "girthing Letter"
— but you deem it otherwise, and your opinion is likely
to be stoutly confirmed if, with fourteen stone and a
bittock, YOU are now contendino; with hounds to reach
Lowesby Station. The latter is one of the many blots
now disfiguring a land that erst flowed only with the
milk and honey — the cream and spice — of foxhunting.
It has established itself in the once sacred vicinity of
John o' Gaunt —an outpost of the ]\Iahdi of progress as
typified in the G.X.R. Hounds dash across its very pre-
cincts, bringing up the huntsman and his little following
short in their tracks. Mr. Brocklehurst, M. Deschamps,
Capt. Ashton, Mr. Cochrane, jun., Rev. Seabrooke and
Lord IManners — not a large proportion of that big
" Friday field." The station-master joins keenly in tlie
sport, and waves his gold-laced headpiece with frantic
zeal, to point the fox's line and the way over, with the
most confusing impartiality. At length the leaders realize
that their only means of passing across the railway lies

72 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

a full field back, wlicre a "cattle crossing" runs under
the embankment. Thither they hurry at the best speed
their panting horses can raise — to find the white railway
gate already besieged by another little force, intent upon
raising it from its hinges. " One more man ! " roars the
colonel, as he and his confederates nearly break their
backs in futile effort. Six more men furnish effectual
reinforcement ; and the whole struggle up the Tilton
hill — to find the pack hovering on the summit, above
Large's Spinney. Five miles they have come, as
straight as hounds or the crow could fly — the time half
an hour, to a minute or so either way. Hitherto it has
been a point-to-point steeplechase. Now hounds must
hunt round Tilton Village, nearly to Tilton Wood, and
up the wooded peak of Colborough Hill. The navvies
are at work about Tilton Station close at hand, and
already are shouting in wild chorus. But navvies
always yell when they see a red coat — so this may only
be their playful way of welcoming us. They have cried
Fox so often, that now we may well be chary of belief.
]jut this time the fox Is really among them — actually
running down the platform and along the metals, with
his tongue out, his back up, and his brush dragging low.
Haifa dozen hounds bring his line down to the station-
but, alas, alas ! the others are away in the opposite
direction, running hard on a fresh fox.

Thus, though the huntsman at length comes back
from the borders of Owston Wood, and, in the vain
endeavour to pick up his beaten fox, works up to Robin-
a-Tiptoe, the end of this great good run is not to be

BARKBir GORSE TO TILTON.

73

signalised with blood. A seven-mile point is no every-
day occurrence here, whatever it may be in other, per-
haps more fortunate, shires — and this gallop had a dozen
happier qualities than its point. I have only to add —
what most of us will deem a welcome equivalent to a kill
■ — that our gallant fox lay exhausted on the Tilton rail-
way, till the platelayers caught and put him imh armed
into a bag. He was then conveyed back to Baggrave,
where under the tender care of Mr. Muggleton, he shortly
recovered not only strength but appetite — and is now
again at large, to give us another such gallop.

CHAPTEK VIIL

HILL AND DALE.

IFTY-FIVE minutes — a good old orthodox
^f \m\Q—and a kill in the open. This was the
run — or, rather, the second run — of the Quorn
on Monday, December 3rd. A brilliant gallop and an
excellent hunt, it presented by no means unbroken
sameness throughout — as I will endeavour to explain
as we go.

The woodcutters had been at work in Thrussington
Wolds — a forty-acre wood, and perhaps the best natural
covert of the Quorn north of the Wreake. Thus a find
seemed unlikely from the first ; and by the time Firr had
worked his way nearly to the far end of the deep inner
ride, thought and speculation were forward with the next
probable draw — or turning to the man with the belt,
who ought to be at hand and probably wasn't.

Almost at our very feet among the fallen fir trees
there was a sudden unmistakeable challenge; another and
another. Here he comes ! Hash ! for heaven's sake, or
he'll be chopped ! The lathy brown form is making its
way right up to the grou}) of horsemen at the cottage
corner. Hounds are all round him as he hesitates and

HILL AND DALE. 75

raises liis white mask inquiringly. By Jove, lie's a bold
one ! A dasli for tlie hedge, and he is away down the
-wind — defying alike the fifty pair of eyes of which he has
to run the gauntlet, and the eighteen couple of noisy
ladies making merry over his departure. Dark, cold, and
drizzly is the day — a keen contrast to the weather that
has served us up such sport in the past fortnight. The
high-level country, too, above Eagdale is a cold wet soil,
that in farming parlance will " scarcely carry a goose to
the acre." But still, and again, there is a rattling scent;
and — what is nine points of the essential law of a run —
hounds are away on the back of their fox.

Everybody who would could get a start to-day ; and
with this advantaire — in addition to that of a line in itself
not too difficult, and rendered still more easy by the pro-
pinquity of a parallel road into which men could drop at
almost any minute — almost everyone might see part or
whole of the run in question. ]\Iany of us, even most of
us (our conscience may bid us confess) rode to men rather
than to hounds during part of those first flying sixteen
minutes across the flat to Dalby Wood ; others were
probably baffled and liindcred by the ironstone-waggon
way on the Dalby hillside ; and many more were certainly
blown and beat after climbing the heights of Little Bel-
voir and pulling out our timepieces to settle eight-and-
twenty minutes as the reckoning to the first slight check.
Yes, we were all near enough to keep the watch at work
to-day; and, as we had one and all fliiled to take the time
in the great run of Friday w^eek, each of us remembered
to mark it to a second to-day.

76 THE BEST SEASON ON KECORD.

Bat I have wandered away from hounds at that most
critical, most crucial of all moments — the start. The
bustling ladies are getting together over the wet rough
meadow that bounds the covert ; and men are rapidly
trooping forth from the wood — mentally girding up their
loins and bracing their sinews for the coming tussle.
That they all pull back in their tracks as hounds swing
suddenly across their very faces directly the earliest fence
is jumped, is, I venture to think, as much a credit to their
own perception of the necessities of the moment as a
tribute to discipline and daily habit. Had the fall of
their squadron leader been the signal for an immediate
halt, they could not have reined in shorter. The white
horse is caught and the rider remounted ere the forward
movement is, almost instantly, renewed. A horrid fall
it looked, as the two heads ploughed the field together —
that of the weaker mortal undermost. But he was 'listed
when men were held to be men, even at forty — and
when twenty years' service was believed to season good
leather, not to wear it out. So the crumpler makes
little difference, save as a wholesome lesson to the grey
— who will take care not to repeat the offence of flmcying
himself still in Northshire, where rails will break easily
and hedges are to be brushed haphazard. Over short
chopping ridges and wet sedgey furrows we are fairly set
going. Who knows how long it may last ? Who knows
but we are merely hurrying over one rough field that we
may have to pull up in the next ? Who is such a fool
as to be left behind 1 Who will not make the most of
what the gods give him — and take his fate, or punish-

HILL AND DALE. 77

ment to-morrow ? Hounds are beyond all reach of
mischief, shooting out of sight through the high black
hedges. The deep sticky ground will keep us — you on
your thoroughbred, me on my lumbering Pegasus — well
removed from mischief till the steel is out of us both, and
out of that dusky brush besides. You ride honestly in
tlieir wake. I plunge at the corner, for the light green
turf that shimmers throuirh the bullfinch and that I know
will carry old Hairyheels far better than the clay you
skim so lightly. Yo-oi ! AVe pull up together at the lane
above Ragdale ; the lissome pack darts through a tiny
spinney ; and we drive onwards over the most unsaintly
pasture in Leicestershire, where the ridge-and-furrow
would seem to have been built for a chessboard, with
anthills thrown on it as pieces. Not a hole in tlie black
bullfinch in front — so we must pull to the right — in luck
or cunning avoiding the plough — dash down its cart track
with due gratitude for the mud-hivours showered from
the front, and make up what ground we can over more
wet grass beyond. Shoby Scoles has loomed and been
left to the rioht. Our fox means somethini;: better than
a point so near. Onward, across the wind they carry it.
Men at work, boys at play — even this desolate region
would seem to be alive to-da}^ One and all of them
have seen the fox — and the fox cared not the whisk of
his brush for any of them. A farmer that we could ill
afford to spare to the Atherstone (Air. J. Cart) is Avetring
his spurs and refreshing his memory in his home country.
Now the hunt, at its best and quickest, is being led 1)y
another of the true yeoman sort — who could ride to

78 THE BEST SEASON ON llECORD.

liounds when most of us had not even attained to a
rocking horse. Turning sharp and readily as hounds
themselves — spotting every gap, yet shrinking not a
moment from accepting Mr. Lubbock's lead at a palisaded
oxer — Mr. Simpkin rides as jauntily as any of the young
and dainty school behind him. Again, ten years are
not far to look back upon : and we can well remember
the Quorn cutting across this very ground — in a twenty
minutes' afternoon burst from Ellars Gorse to Lord
Aylesford's — which Mr. Lubbock then reached facile
princeps in his chase of hounds. To-day — so say those
in a position to tell — he is riding in quite the same good
form, with Mr. G. Lambton as liis nearest assistant.
(And in this early scurry over blind ditches, strong
fences, and varied grass and plough — with such a scent
that hounds bore themselves well out of over-riding
distance — the chronicler may fairly seize upon name and
prowess that admit of no gainsaying.)

So sixteen minutes have brought us to Old Dalby
Wood — and on such terms with our fox that these rougli
hillsides (the wall of the Vale of Belvoir) are, for once,
less likely to help him than his pursuers. The pack cuts
through the wood without dwelling a moment ; and now
we must dive into the vale to circumvent the ironworks
and thread the waggon-ways which have brought so un-
sightly a change upon the edge of the Vale. Were not
hounds running so f\xst, and we not heartily warmed to
work, we should little relish scrambling down, and again
up, the precipitous hillside, clattering for half a mile
along a tramway, and then plunging full speed down a

HILL AND DALE. 79

steep stony road. But all the while hounds are speedmg
alongside and below us, enjoying the turf wliieh we can-
not reach, till under the gorse-covered slope of Wartnaby
Stonepits we can join them — only to be called upon
ao:ain to chest the bursting;: ascent. The best of backs
and lungs can scarcely cope with it, and retain strength
enough for the new cut fence and wide dug ditch on the
summit. A long, galloping bay succeeds in propelling
his lengthy forehand to terra firina ; but the striding
hindquarters that work so well on the flat are here a
mere incumbrance. However, the roll is in the right
direction — and the fence is beautifully less for the pant-
ing animals that follow. Now we hurry along the brow,
and round the plantation, to find hounds with their
heads up near the well-known edifice of Little Bel voir.
Two foxes have just been seen by the ploughmen. One
has turned back into the spinney, the other gone forward
towards Holwell Mouth. Nine times out of ten a well-
run fox is forward ; and ninety-nine times out of a
hundred he is down the wind. Some more casuals in the
lane aver they have headed the fox. But hounds still
declare him forward — and Firr wants no further evidence.
What is that dark speck skimming the stubble down in
the vale? What else is it likely to be but our fox?
Hounds run hard to the spot, to endorse the view ; and
now again would information, of another fox, have gladly
robbed the huntsman of his quarry. Hounds are deter-
mined to press on ; informant is equally determined that
the fox has turned up the hill for Holwell Mouth. Both
are doubtless risfht — but we had ever better trust nose

80 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

than eyes if we would stick to a run fox. Now we seem
to be bearing upward to Clawson Thorns ; but it is a
irood omen that we turn suddenly down the vale a^^ain
as we meet a waggon at the Clawson road. Reynard
cannot be far ahead, or why should the waggon have
mattered to him ? Hounds are driving with their hackles
up ; but a fresh ploughed fallow by Long Clawson
Village gives them, for the second and last time, a
moment of puzzle and search. A hat is up at the corner
of the field ; hounds are lifted this once ; and in the next
great pasture they are racing the big brown fox up the
hedgeside — rumble-and-worry forming a thrilling bass to
the shrill sharp treble of a who-hoop that might be
heard at Melton.

A IMonday field with the Quorn is always of pleasant
dimension — as it is of very pleasant material — enough
people for sociability and enough to ride a run. Yet
there is none of the crowd belonging to a Friday south
of the Wreake — nor are the elements of the field so
varied, comprehensive, and heterogeneous. Men seem
to be better known to each other and to hail more from
one district ; while the formers, in greater force, always
take advantage of a Monday Avlien they can. The
following names represent a strong proportion of last
Monday's meet ; and most of these might equally be
incorporated with the finish of the day : Mr. Coupland
and Miss Webster, Colonel Forester, Captain and Miss
Starkey, Mrs. Parker, Miss Paget, General Chippindall,
Colonel Gosling, Captains Ashton, Barclay, Boyce,
Grimston, Henry, King, Langlands, Messrs. Cochrane (2),

HILL AND DALE. 81

J. Cradock, Hume, Gerald Paget, ^Y. Paget, Descliamps,
0. Paget, Martin (3), H. T. Barclay, G. Pocliln, B.
Lubbock, Parker, Beaumont, W. Chaplin, E. Chaplin,
Knowles, G. Lambton, Wade, Simpkin (2), Cart, Knight,
Hames, Marshall, Henton.

The morning episode from Ellar's Gorse the same
day only just missed brilliancy through our fox gaining a
start of some minutes as he stole away over the brook
below the covert. Even then — gauged as a hunting
run — there was little to cavil at in the hour's work that
led us, with multiplied opportunity for jump and gallop,
to the honey-combed banks of Shoby Scoles — where
this two-season hunter is in the habit of making good
his escape, whether he has to wend his way by a
Willoughby-and-Dalby Circle or by means of Six Hills-
and-Thrussington Wolds. To-day he laughed at us
throudi the former medium.

Friday, the last day of November, wound up an
extremely good month for the Quorn in very consistent
fashion. I fancy that everyone who went to Great
Dalby must have had his fill of sport and riding before
the close of the day. Or, if he failed to do so, it was
due to some untoward accident or shortcoming of his
own — surely to no fault in the fixre oifered him. For
hounds were running hard most of tlie day — choosing
■such lines and circles of country as admitted of everyone
obtainino: his share in the fun. Had the two runs been
much straightcr and faster, it is certain that some two
hundred people could not have gone home content. The
first ring — from Gartree Hill — took close upon an hour

82 THE BEST SEASOX OX EECOKD.

to complete — tlie earlier half being voted excellent, for it
embraced the strong pastures of Great Dalby, and in-
cluded the best part of the Burrough steeplechase course,
at a capital pace. It is a matter of conjecture where we
may have changed foxes ; but there is room for belief
that, for a second time this autumn, hounds never
recovered the true line after touching the garden of
Burrough Hill House. In the afternoon a fox from
Thorpe Trussels, headed in the village, all but died a
craven death in the poultry-pen of Thorpe Satchville
Hall. But, escaping from this, he repeated to a letter
the evening burst of last Kirby Gate day — then, reaching
Burrough Hill, bore to the left by Great Dalby, and w\as
prettily run and hunted almost to his death, at his own
door. " Gentlemen ! gentlemen ! Cant you stand still
while hounds hunt up to you ? "

Not altogether devoid of comedy, by the way, was a
little scene encountered just previously. The two
hundred were hurrying, breathless and excited — some to
keep with hounds, others to catch them, and others still
to catch others — and, so doing, they closely enveloped
and overspread a fallow field, in the innnediate vicinity
of the Hon. JMr. Sandford's hunting-box. To-morrow
was to be Piper Hole with the Belvoir ; and if there is
one man among us who studies and insists upon
condition^ it is ]\Ir. S., for whom, moreover — in virtue of
various pleasant memories — an evening run with the
Belvoir ever possesses an especial charm. So Alderman,
by Forager, dam by Repletion, being a bit heavier than
he ought, must without fail do a light gallop in heavy

HILL AND DALE.

83

clotliing — " iniutl, a steady pace only ; but not to be
pulled up till lie has finished his two miles." The task
happened to be only just begun when the pack broke
noisily into the field. Boy turned one eye and one ear
in the direction of the sound, and merely took tighter
hold of the head of Alderman, who himself paid very
little more attention to the interruption. Completing his

,.,,1J-'**^ ,!„ ■■■,.■-....11,,. ^ .. ,,.,,.

"BOY NEVER TURNED HIS HEAD, ALTERED HIS PACE, NOR MOVED
A MUSCLE."

circle, Boy found that he was now doing his gallop in
company with a dozen men in scarlet. This mattered to
him not a jot. He neither mended nor slackened his
speed, but went with them to the end of the field ; then,
wheeling as he found an opening, performed another
circle, and accompanied a second detachment up the
fallow. By this time the field was full ; but Boy never
turned his head, altered his pace, nor moved a muscle.
He merelv counted his circles and steered his way

84 THE BEST SEASOX ON RECORD.

cleverly tlirougli the throng of horsemen — from among
whom one would now and then turn off after him for a
few strides, like a puppy leaving the pack after a hare —
only to rejoin his comrades under the impression that he
had seen something uncanny, and that so many late
nights in succession would really never do. Every rider of
the whole company passed ; but Boy still went doggedly
on, driving his sheeted and hooded conveyance round to
complete his allotted cycle, and treating the stray crowd
with as much unconcern as if only a flock of starlings
were fussing past. Not out of mere curiosity, but in
some slender hope of being enabled to inculcate even a
little of this rigid respect for duty and orders into the
members of my own ill-regulated establishment, I would
gladly learn what influence was at work to render that
Boy so entirely callous to all outer surroundings. Are
the stirrup-leathers at Morton Lodge, think you, kept
supple by the same use as that to which Mr. Isaac was
accustomed to put them in Market Harboro' '? Does a
bit of rope's end still survive to keep up old associations
with blue water ? Or again, did the Boy's master
happen to be the flrst man to jump into that fallow-field
— transfixing him at once with a quarter-deck eye that
there was no mistaking ? May we look to any of these,
or was some deeper seated agency at work to produce
an adherence to duty that we had hitherto believed to
exist only under the direct superintendence of the drill
sergeant or the boatswain's mate ? I seem to see that
rigid imperturbable horseman still ; but for the life of me
I cannot (with a certain experience of the genus) bring

HILL AND DALE.

S5

myself to imbue liim ^vitll a rigidity of rectitude that
should thus out of slieer conscientiousness enable him to
pursue his way so totally unmoved — surely the most
marvellous living instance of justmn et tenacem jjropositf
virinn.

CHAPTER IX.

A TWO DAYS BREAK,

HE frost of the week ending December 8th rudely
interrupted a routine just established — a day-to-day life
thoroughly entered upon — a habit of being and doing to
which body and mind had become fairly set. The dis-
ruption, for which we might well have been prepared and
were not, put the machinery of existence all out of joint
— giving us a shock as if we had never thought or heard
of frost, and as if the four months' future had been
bought on the conditions of open weather and uninter-

A TWO DAYS BREAK. 87

rupted sport. The stoppage came too soon ; we liad not
bargained for it, we wanted none of it — nor did our
horses. Thus we grumbled at home, or took our
growlings abroad ; at once made up our little minds for
the worst ; accepted a hard winter as a foregone con-
clusion— and there was a long list of absentees, sliooting,
playgoing, and in various fashion picking oakum for
Satan, when, after three days, the wind chopped round
to the south, proclaiming a hunting morning to
inaugurate the new week.

The Quorn accordingly reopened the ball witli another
long run on Monday, Dec. 10 — covering a great deal of
ground in two hours. The pace never approached that
of some of their recent more brilliant performances ; but
tliey ran over a very goodly country, and showed muck
beautiful hunting to a field of such a size as could best
enjoy it. A\'e cannot expect to be gallojjing full speed
every da}'- — nor, if such were possible, would it suit
either the luck or capacity of each and all of us. Every
dog has his day — and some dogs are satisfied with less of
a day than others. We are jolly dogs if we have turned
the spit of fortune so as to catch the ftdl blaze of success
in a hard-ridden chase. AVe are doleful doc's if we have

O

been left in the shade ; our tails go down ; we whine and
lament : we even insult the understanding: of our fellow-
men (excellent judges and unsparing, even if silent,
critics) by explaining with much emphasis the unheard-of
combination of circumstances that led to our missing the
run — and perhaps we miss another the very next day.
But the catastrophe should not beftill us in what we

88 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

term a " liimtiiig run." AVe surely ought to be there
then — if only to assert our right, as subscribers, land
occupiers, or poachers, to ride among the hounds and
round the huntsman. So we all of us make the most of
a hunting run ; see more of the work than we can
possibly expect to in three " gallops '' out of four, or in
ninety-nine out of a hundred (according to our calibre,
mental, bodily, and generally effective) ; have a great
deal more to say about it afterwards (not the worst part
of foxhunting) ; and probably go to bed without any of
the soreness that may be our share after the fastest "run
of the season."

Monday's was an excellent example of such oppor-
tunity. HoAv much we may have seized it — why we did
or why we didn't — is best known to ourselves, and to the
man who, never very forward himself, invariably has an
inquiry of mock solicitude for you and me as we jog up
with apparent unconcern after the fox has been broken
up. On Monday hounds brought us a long way, for the
most part over a very eligible country ; the fox made an
honest point of eight miles and a half; and whatever else
might ha])pen on the wa}', it could scarcely have been
the pace that choked the straggler off.

My brief and very unvarnished narrative has to start from
Willoughby Gorse — where we found, no doubt, tlie Ellar's
Gorse fox of repeated renown. The first seven or eight
minutes' rush led us through a cruel country — very nice
grass, it is true, but that grass parcelled out in little
plots and paddocks so stiffly fenced that no two comfort-
able gap') lay opposite each other ; and the boldest and

A TWO days' break. 89

most venturesome of our stock pilots were to be seen
dodging and twisting like hares turned by greyhounds.
Ellar's Gorse is but a mile from that of Willoughby ; and
when once we had passed the former, had left the brook
satisfactorily to our right, and reached the road on the
opposite hill, we deemed the gallop assured, and a
pleasant easy country ahead. But carriages and foot-
people broke the first dash ; scent lay dubiously on the
yet cold ground ; and slow hunting began. I am far
from saying that true, patient, and — as in this case —
quick hunting has not charms, or even charms In their
own way quite equivalent to the more effervescent
delights of a sharp scurry. On the other hand, I would
never dare argue that Leicestershire, and a Leicestershire
field, form at all times the best scene and surroundings
for the quieter phases of line-hunting. Indeed, when
men's blood has once been roused by the hurry-scurry of
a flying start, I should say they form for a while the
very worst. But a very few minutes will serve to cool
needless ardour, and bring the hottest of enthusiasts to
his bearings. To ride to hounds here (quite as much as
anywhere else) men must have learned to keep an eye
on their movements ; and to see when it is no longer
necessary to rush and rake. Once let liounds settle and
men be quiet, it is certainly more enjoyable, and probably
no less edifying, to see a fox steadily hunted over a good
country than a bad one.

The fox in question succeeded in crossing the road at
last, leaving the pack to puzzle out his line down a side
lane, before — field for field, and fence for fence as on

DO THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

two previous occasions — he carried tliem on above Old
Dalby to Lord Aylesford's Covert. A plough team
turning him In the last field, he skirted Old Dalby Wood,
^nd rested awhile In Grimston Gorse — moving on again
in view as hounds came up. From Saxelby Spinney,
just beyond, ensued another sharp ten minutes over the
best of the Quorn Monday grass. They ran slower again
while the field worked its way out of the entanglements
of the three bottoms that cut up the ground below
AYartnaby ; but set to work quicker again round the
tightly-fenced neighbourhood of Kettleby Village. From
the Belvoir covert of Old Hills their fox gave some of
the field another view ; but a slight check ensued at
Scalford Spinney, half a mile further. Just short of the
railway beneath Melton Spinney hounds bore to the left
for Scalford Village ; and — having now scored a point of
eight mlles-and-a-half from the find — settled down as if
running for blood. A mile of deep plough came as a
distressing variety to horses that had been steadily
pegging on for an hour and a half. But above Clawson
Thorns, Reynard was signalled as close In front ; and at
the neutral covert of Holwell ]\Ioutli he found the main
earth an open refuge. Verdict — a real good fox, and a
right sporting run. Recommended by the jury — that, as
the earth stopper has now so fully established the neu-
trality of the covert by allowing a fox to get to ground
in the earth in front of both the Belvoir and the Quorn
hounds within the last month, he be now instructed to
smoke out and close the said earth permanently until it
is ngain needed in the spring.

CHAPTER X.

BAR KEY TO TILTON AGAIN.

^^^ URELY no one who started in that black storm,
from Thorpe Trussels witli the Quorn on Friday
^,^^1) (Dec. l-i), conkl have dared suppose that a day
of sport was before him — however deep liis faith in the
23ack, and however assured by recent events of tlie bright
ascendancy of its star. Rain and tempest nearly swept
one from the saddle, blinded men and horses, confused
the pack, and washed away all trace of Reynard directly
the railway was crossed. (I fear me, by the way, that
the good man who so deftly unlocked the gates had his
outstretched hat more readily filled with rainwater than
silver in the dark confusion — for the most grateful and
ready of pockets could scarcely have dared open to the
drenching downpour. It was a relief, however, to see that
the acute janitor was sensible enough to reappear with
the sun, to claim from several the gratitude, and the
joourhoire, wdiich should ensure us favours to come. The
little luxury of " a glass to Foxhunting " at the village
public is — believe me — a wondrously valuable agent in
these precarious times. Its recognition is not a costly
affair ; the opportunity is frequent enough ; and hunting

02 THE BEST SEASON OX EECORD.

men who would combat the hostile influences, day by day
more manifest against their liberty of" action and recrea-
tion, may \ve\\ afford thus to nurture the name of Fox-
hunting among a class that were born to honour and
esteem it, but are now too freely schooled to revere no-
thing.)

This parenthesis gives us time to find the passing
storm overpast, a fresh fox found in Ashby Pastures,
three couple of hounds on with him to Thorpe Trussels,
and the huntsman galloping the others up to join them.
By and bye we were away up the yet wild wind, with
the green slopes of Twyford and Ashby Folville in front.
In the teeth of the breeze there was a brilliant scent — a
scent that proved itself marvellous in every field. For,
eccentric as are the ways of the wily one, I at least have
never known him tack and beat up the wind so sharply
as now. In fact, he cut and drove against it like a
snipe — the j^ack spreading a hundred yards broad, and
dashing into each twist with a swing that kept every
hound at top speed. There was nothing in his path to
turn him ; nor was there any apparent reason for his
passing over a fluted drain that had seemed his obvious
point. Possibly, finding himself pushed up the strong
breeze, with a wide-spread field behind him, he had no
alternative but to persevere. In this case the result was
a very bright twenty minutes' scurry, with a scent that,
on a day so Avild and rough, we should scarcely have
found down the wind. He skirted the village of Ashby
Folville, then at last kept his heod straight, and took us
gaily to I^Ir. Cheney's Long Spinney at Gaddesby — across

BAEKBY TO TILTON AGAIN^. 93

a pleasant and roomy line of grass below the village of
Barsby. The fences were strong and the falls were
many — but the soft ground makes falHng, if not actually
acceptable, at least ten per cent, less disagreeable than
under harder conditions (the unfortunate accident to Mr.
S. Paget in a gateway being a sad exception, on wdiich,
as is our custom and principle, we forbear to dwell).

A touching action, not without its moral of goodwill
and friendship, came to light while some fifty people
were clearing the last fence approaching the spinney.
Among the earliest to fly the stake-and-bound was one
of Melton's smartest sons — his flushed and heated brow
now bared to the cooling breeze, and his fair locks as
nearly flowing as the weekly visit to the London barber
would warrant (for we are very punctilious on this head
— at all events till we reach the sober age of thirty, or
till we find ourselves added to the list of Benedicts).
Immediately following him rode a gaUant gentleman who
came last winter, not only to learn how English fox-
hunting was carried on, but even to bear away to France
"the laurels and the siller" of the Leicestershire Hunt
Steeplechase. Adapting himself with extraordinary
readiness to the ways and fashions of the sport, and
rapidly acquiring the knack of riding to hounds — he yet
found one little detail to puzzle and trouble him far
more than merely learning how to fall, much more than
accustoming himself to stout timber or scratchy bull-
finches. This to him lay in the incompatibility of the
hat of society to the rude exercise of the chase. A tall
beaver would surely be as much out of place in the

91. THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

glades of the Forest of Versailles, as a long winding
horn round Tom Firr's body would be here. The ex-
ceptional good breeding of his race renders every one of
his countrymen nimble and graceful beyond all others in
the art of doffing the hat. But the point now so difficult
of acquirement was to heep it on. Well-fitting hats —
hats too big — hats too little — all seemed possessed with
the same cruel objection to remaining in their proper
position. When he jumped, they flew. When he fell,
they broke away. He took his falls with the non-
chalance pertaining to a courage that would not be
daunted and a resolution that never failed. If the hat
and he chanced to foil on the same side of the fence,
they rejoined forces, and went on in the fray together.
But he was far too good and determined a sportsman to
throw away a run for the sake of saving a hat. Vestigia
nulla retrorsum was his motto — which, for information
of a certain hunt servant who w\aa for the moment
so sorely hurt by my thoughtless and opprobrious
epithet of locum tenens,''' may be translated as signifying
" Look back for another hat " — and so he sailed onwards
in the first flight of many a good gallop, hatless, brave,
and unabashed. In fiict, the possession or not of his hat
by M. Elysees began to be regarded as more or less the
criterion of the merits, and especially of the pace, of a
run. It was even suggested that a scale should be
established, and the standard of the gallop denoted by

* Within a week of the chance emphiyment, and the subsequent funny
misconstruction of the term, Mr. Punch was supplied from the Vale of
Belvoir with material for a cut conveying the mistake in another form.

BAPtKBY TO TILTON AGAIN.

95

tlie temporary liead-coverlng worn by liim on the way
home — for instance, a yellow bandana to betoken a
rattling half-hour, a white kerchief a sharp twenty
minutes. But look at him now, in the second month of
his second season, as he lands over the fence by Gaddesby
Spinney — after a scurry that has levelled and dishevelled
many a pretty horseman ! Is he bare-headed ? Is he

"PRODUCED IT WITH A SWEEP TO HIS VERY STIRRUP."'

still a victim to an infirmity that brought him a bushel
of cliafi", and cost a hatful of money ? No, doubly No.
His own faultless headpiece, with its smooth silk almost
unruffled, sits lightly and firmly in its place — while in
his teeth is tightly grasped the hat of his brother-
Meltonian, who having left it in the first thick bullfinch
from Thorpe Trussels, had thought never to see it again.
The friend-in-need, with both hands free to steer his way
in the race, had never relinquished the legacy that he

96 THE BEST SEASON OX RECOHD.

found in liis path — and now produced it witli a sweep to
liis very stirrup. Does not a fellow-feeling make us
wondrous kind ?

But the run of the day, of course, was in the afternoon
— from Barkby Holt, and with the same good fox as on
our famous Friday fresh in memory. As my prophetic
soul bade me foretell, he gave us another gallop on the
same lines — and he did his part bravely. Again we ran
to Tilton ; again we rode the Lowx'sby pastures ; and
ao*ain he beat us at the finish. On this occasion we
galloped most of the five miles — last time we raced the
whole of them. On this Friday we crowded through
bridle gate after bridle gate — but avoided the disastrous
bottom to which so much misfortune was attributed a
fortnight ago. So much for comparison. Now for a few
small details, and I have done— for there was nothing in
the run to justify a narrative of men and deeds. To
begin with, no one who viewed the fox on Friday last,
and had viewed him also that other da}', could have
believed in his identity — till, as the run proceeded, we
saw him work time after time back to his exact former
line, and at last succeed in running it gap for gap to
Tilton Village. For the dark healthy fox was now
changed (no doubt from the exhaustion of his previous
effort) to a mangy and sorry beast of strangely different
aspect. But he was strong enough still to stand before
hounds for a hard forty minutes — and may yet carry us
over that pleasant ground again. To-day he was found
ill the Holt ; and, with people riding all round the
Gorse, had to escape at the lower end before turning for

BAEKBY TO TILTON AGAIN. 97

Baggrave. This necessity put the South Croxton brook
(a pretty little bank-to-bank jump) in the path of all who
rode to hounds — while just previously it had also included
one of the surest traps in the Hunt circuit. It ought to
have been well known to all who have ridden from Barkby
Holt to Queniboro' Spinney. Perhaps it was to many,
in the cunning of our hard-earned geography. But for
all that, its second ditch (a full horse' s-length away)
reaped a full harvest once more. We rode through
South Croxton Village, along the bridle-road to Bag-
grave covert and Hall, along the bridle-road to Lowesby
— along the bridle-road yet further, and only the two miles
past Lowesby Station to Large's Spinneys by means of
legitimate cross-country work. At half-a-dozen different
points there were footpeople to keep Reynard to his
bridle-path course, and forbid him the range of wild
grass that he had traversed so boldly and rapidly before.
But, with a scent not brilliant yet more than fairly good,
it was an excellent hound-run : and only the odium of
needless comparison could detract from its sterling merit.
On the Tilton hill, hard by the village, our fox lay down
for two or three minutes ; but, before the hounds (at
fault on a fallow) could be brought to him, he was again
on his legs, and finally baffled them in the middle of the
village — forty minutes from the find.

CHAPTER XL

SPORT IN SEASON.

OULD foxliimters have bidden a merrier Christ-
mas than that of 1883, with its quiet mild
weather, its daily companionship, its whole-
some and corrective exercise, and its very antagonism to
the seasonable misery of icy idleness ? Day by day we
have made merry and felt happy in a fashion more
healthy than anything offered by the wassail bowl or the
irrational and indigestible pudding. A scarlet coat is
better than red berries ; and the misletoe went out of
date with hunting the slipper. Hunting the fox is the
truest Christmas pastime — and in this we could indulge
to the very eve of the feast-day, under the happy con-
ditions of calm warm air, dry skins, and almost dry
ground.

It would be impossible to conceive three pleasanter
hunting days than the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
preceding Christmas — with Sir Bache Cunard, the Quorn,
and the Cottesmore respectively. No great event came
of any of them. But merely to be riding about was a
luxury ; and to know that the season was un-Christmas-
like was in itself a boon.

SPORT IN SEASON. 99

Thursday, Dec. 20th, at Illstoii Grange, was a quiet
muggy morning — which might mean a scent, but might
not and did not. The beautiful Norton and Billesdon
country never shone out more enticingly than now. The
big assemblage included men from Market Harboro',
Melton, and all the district between ; but Fate did
nothing for them. A cowardly fox got back to Norton
Gorse and to ground as quick as he could — while three
grim fences brought some thirteen good men also to
ground. Shankton Holt had by accident stood over for
six weeks— and four brace of foxes were ready to run.
But scent was nil^ either here or from Sheepshorns.
Yet, to instance the perversity of scent and fortune — the
Meynell showed the run of the season to two or three
Meltonians who took train that day to join them.

Friday, Dec. 21st, was only relieved from poverty by a
sharp brief scurry in the evening — scarcely enough to
reward, certainly not enough to satisfy the appetites of,
the many who had come from a distance. It would seem,
by the way — not to judge from this particular day, but
from every day of this delightful open winter when
hounds have met in any fair sample of the country round
— that not only do more men hunt, but that they travel
farther and more readily to do it, than ever before. The
explanation of the fact — if I am right in assuming it to
be a fact — lies no doubt in the multiplicity of railways,
and the new facilities so readily advanced by competing
companies. During this Christmas holiday time, indeed,
our fields are made up quite as largely of strangers from
afar as of members of the home or neighbouring Hunts—

H 2

100

THE BEST SEASON ON RECOED.

and this, too, quite apart from the welcome swarm of
beaming schoolboys. But, merely to join the pack
nearest their own, and to avoid long roadwork, the
regular hunting men of the district appear to make far
freer use of the trains, even of the old-established rail-

'' HEY, JOHNSON! * * * ORDER ME A TRAIN! I'lL HUNT WITH SIR BACHE,"

ways, than they were accustomed to before they had the
example thus lavishly set — albeit an instance to the con-
trary suddenly jumps into memory, carrying me back
fully half a dozen years to one Thursday morn. The
clock had barely finished striking nine at a certain Lodge
in Melton Mowbray (smoking hours having been pro-
longed overnight and Thursday voted an off day), when

SPORT IN SEASON. 101

the voice of mine host sounded loudly over the banisters,
" Hey, Johnson ! Bring me my shaving-water at once,
and order me a train ! I'll hunt with Sir Bache."

But about Friday afternoon last. The Quorn had for
once been out of luck. They had brought off only a slow
hunt from Scraptoft ; and had then, alas, chopped the
good Barkby fox in covert. In fact, the only amuse-
ment of the day had, at some considerable trouble and
no little risk to themselves, been generously furnished
to a circle of appreciative friends by two of the
best proved riders of our younger school. Tired of
inaction, they felt bound to do something to break the
monotony. How better than by breaking a top-binder ?
But anybody can jump a hedge. Anybody," however,
cannot light harmlessly on his feet at the foot of the
thorns, stopping a rushing horse in a single stride !
Bravissimo ! Oh, but we can beat that easily. Houp-la !
Over we go — the mare turns a summersault, so do we —
our patent stirrups describing a parabola and dropping
side by side twenty yards oif. A light, you wish, sir ?
Certainly, our horse is down, our stirrups they have
flown — and our cigarette has never left our lips !

The sole remaining chance of the day lay in the little
Gaddesby Spinney, whence the first bright gallop of the
season had dated. Out with the watch again ! Three
o'clock this time ! and the self-same fox I believe and
hope. Again he heads for Gaddesby ; and again we
troop into the road — no, not all ; for the huntsman,
Messrs. Beaumont, Baldock, Lambton, Gilson, and one
or two others ride the line of hounds fairly, and jump

102 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

the wide cross fence directly after them. See, the pack
swings towards us now, the leading hounds are not forty
yards from the road — and we have done a right clever
thing, thus to cling to the lane ! Have we, though ?
'Tvvas somewhere here he bent away before — and now
see them turn suddenly northward again ! Slip out
through this first open gate ; disengage at all hazards —
or safely and certainly you will be carried on in the rush
like a straw down a millrace. The foremost hounds are
already wheeling off. The fox has been headed from
the lane. Cut across the anole with i\Ir. and Miss
Chaplin, Mr. Miles, and the few others who have extri-
cated themselves, and you may ride in their wake
over the very gaps that helped you in that November
gallop — while, thundering down the lane, and finding
never another exit, scores of good men are now gallop-
ing right away from hounds, in helpless bitterness of
soul. To write the history of the next ten minutes
would be but to repeat a tale already told. Fence and
gate, field and gap, yard for yard, did hounds and horses
swiftly follow their footsteps of a former occasion —
leaving Gaddesby village behind them, and scouring the
Brooksby farm from end to end. But here the repeti-
tion ends ; a check and a change of foxes came after
a quarter of an hour, and the best of the chase was
over.

Saturday, December 22nd (the least difficult form is
that of the skeleton diary) — the Cottesmore at Wild's
Lodge, only three miles from ]Melton breakfiist tables
(involving therefore only two more cigars overnight).

Pi

SPORT IN SEASON. 103

At tlie Meet. Effect of unusually open season even on
Melton studs. Rigorous and opulent sportsman is not
wearing pink. " How's tliis, my dear fellow ? Aunt
gone at last? " " No (with a sad sigli). No. Fact is,
I rode this horse first on Thursday ; had but one other
for to-day ; my fellow said ' he might do a bit this
morning if I o/i/t/ tuore a black coat.'' So I've been
obliged to humour him." Take this to heart, ye who
set no store on the noble " red rag " of foxhunting, and
who wonder why the second horseman don't touch their
hats unless you happen to be riding in company with the
purple ! (Farmers, parsons, hunting correspondents,
and men-who-have-had-a-cropper-and-can't-go-in-their-
usual-form, of course being at liberty to adapt their
costume to their circumstances and condition). This
little moral tale reproduced by special permission — all
rights reserved.

11*45. Under the old tree on the Burton Flat — near
the river side opposite Wyfordby — Reynard looking down
from the main fork, some twenty feet up — Master crack-
ing his whip below — hantsman and hounds openmouthed
and hungry a short fifty yards away. Reynard don't
seem to see it. " Take those dogs away — or I won't
play.'' " Shy a stick at him — and don't get in the way
of the hounds, sir ! "

11 '50. Cannonade fairly opened. First discharge
produces obvious effect : and enemy cowers behind such
shelter as he can find. Second discharge, still better
directed, brings about a decided panic and an immediate
change of position. No casualties at present on our

104 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

side. Third discharge completely routs the enemy.
Now for pursuit, brave boys !

Reynard's five yards start, however, proved quite
enough for him. From that moment until after 3 '30,
hounds were busy trying to catch him, or his substitutes
— but went home with no nearer acquaintance with that
bright red fur than when it shone before their wistful
eyes from its lofty perch, or dangled a moment ere it
descended almost on their noses. They hustled him up
and down the precincts of river and railway, past
Burbage's Covert and back into Stapleford Park — in one
of the wet furrows of which he lay gasping, till half a
dozen throats grew hoarse in holloaing over him, and
while the pack vainly sought a clue below the House.
Cooled and refreshed, he then preceded hounds into
Laxton's Covert, and then perhaps climbed another tree
— for it was a dark black fox that now played a long
game of hide-and-seek amid the privet. " A bad fox"
of course we dubbed him — one and all of us, from the
line-hunting veteran of sixty to the coming Nimrods
twixt six and sixteen, who are blossoming now like
Christmas roses, and who wanted to be off and away.
We all thought we knew something of foxes ; and we all
said something of this one — because our tongues must
wag, and because we failed to see that a fox would not
be forced in a direction contrary to his bent. For, after
all, he stuck to his point and made his way — across the
broad park, round its farther limits, over the railway by
the level crossing, and on beyond Wymondham Roughs.
We galloped the flat heartily ; and then had a sharp

SPORT IN SEASON. 105

hard quarter of an hour — till again involved in the rail-
Avay. So to Ashwell, by bridge and crossing and arch
and padlocked gate — threading the line, whereon exter-
mination threatened hounds every quarter of a mile.
But these are days in which even engine drivers read of
how wars are made and foxes are hunted. Train after
train slackened or pulled up to give the pack time ; and
ours I fancy was the more dangerous progress. It
certainly was when we reached the Ashwell Vale, by
which time all courage had fairly cooled and men merely
sauntered after hounds — letting the unravelment of
sandwich-papers and the disentanglement of their fox's
course divide their attention in proportions somewhat in
favour of the former study. High flights, whether of
intellect, enthusiasm, or high timber, are scarcely the
natural outcome of minds relaxed. Yet now of a sudden
they found themselves in a position that would have been
scarcely welcome with temperament at boiling point.
A new ironstone waggon-way, bounded on either side by
lofty post-and-rails, had been built across the valley ; and
the Ashwell brook — diverted into a newly-dug channel —
came at right angles to form a corner. A workman
beckoned across the railway to point their fote ; the
hounds were already over — and the freshly sawn timber
rose menacingly white and stiff. A dozen ready pair of
arms were quickly at work to force an opening ; but the
oak-posts declined to move, or the ash-rails to do more
than bend and spring back. At this moment Capt. Blair
was to be seen riding along the low embankment. How
did he get there ? D.Iust be a nice hole farther back, of

106 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

course ! So the party rGmounted and turned along tlie
line with gladdened hearts — to find their comrade's foot-
prints marking the greensward whence he had made his
jump. They couldn't stay there all day — so the fun
began. Two horses refused ; and a dozen at once
followed suit. The second whip and his steed then rolled
in without actually parting : the Master, after putting up
with one refusal, took his hunter by the head, and flxirly
squeezed him over — in a fashion that few^ of our genera-
tion have strength, hands, and horsemanship to imitate
(but that it would have warmed Col. Thomson's heart to
witness). The huntsman's journey in was the crowning
result of many efforts ; but, instead of encouraging those
who in breathless anxiety w^atched his clamber back from
forehead-band to saddle, it went far to confirm their first
impressions of the undesirability of the attempt ; and
Mr. Cecil Chaplin was his only follower. Two or three
others plunged somehow along the bed of the brook, to
gain the railway bank and the gate on the opposite side.
The rest found there was " no liiuTy after all " — and,
bnnging united weight and discretion to bear, caught
hounds an easy quarter of an hoar afterwards. Then we
could see them hunt on under Market Overton to Barrow
Gorse, run back fairly fast to Woodwell Head, and confess
themselves beaten about midway between that wood and
Coston Covert — after nearly four liours' patient and
often pretty hunting.

The Quorn had quite a wonderful run the same day ;
and though they met in a somewhat unfashionable corner
of their country, they found a fox to take them almost

SPORT IN SEASON. 107

into tlie heart of it, and to pick out for them all the
choicest ground by the way. Meeting at Cortlingstock,
they drew Bunney Park, and thence ran a distance of
heticeen ticenty-tico and twenty-Jour miles^ making a
twelve-mile point, and crossing not a dozen ploughed
fields in the whole run ! I trust The^ Field may be
furnished with a detailed account of this great hunt from
the pen of someone who was with them. Meanwhile the
following outline will convey a fair notion to those who
know the country.

The hounds pressed their fox up and dow^n Bunney
Wood before he faced the open ; then they ran him fast
by Wysall and over a wild grass district between Hoton
and Wimeswold. Leaving Prestwold to the right, they
hunted on nearly to Mr. Cradock's Spinney by Six Hills ;
then, crossing Mr. Coupland's farm, freshened the pace
again till they overlooked Old Dalby. Bearing now to
the left, they kept above Upper Broughton, passed to the
right of The Curate and close by The Parson's Gorse,
past the left of Hickling and by Key Wood (where the
Belvoir had been about three quarters of an hour before).
As their fox failed, so did daylight ; and, though he was
constantly viewed as he crawled before them up to the
village of Colston Basset, darkness came on when another
ten minutes must have sufticed to kill him.

In a week that was fruitful of no great events (bar the
feat of the Quorn on Saturday, when all of the Melton
side were hunting elsewhere), perhaps the most to enjoy
was found in the Christmas Eve gallop from Thrussington
Gorse — when the Ouorn raced a fox into view in twelve

108 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

minutes and hunted liim to ground in about forty-five.
Twice in tlie day it happened that a fox, just entering
upon the beautiful Hoby Vale, preferred to turn in to a
drain rather than trust his strength over those wide fair
fields. But this by the way — and, I should have added,
from Cossington Gorse and Thrussington Wolds in turn.
The run was from Thrussington Gorse — hounds quietly
slipping away on a fox that left unseen. He crossed the
Fosse Road between the covert and Six Hills — and they
were across it too, long before any Christmas crowd
could cut them olf. A dozen men turned out of the road
(always the most difficult, yet often the most desperately
necessary point in riding to hounds) ; but they had
scurried almost out of sight before anyone had reached
the second road, by Mr. Cradock's Spinney. Round this
they swept hke a whirlwind, pointing as it were for Ellar's
Gorse — Downs in closest pursuit, with Messrs. G.
Lambton, Pennington, Beaumont, and the huntsman
apparently the only others who could live the pace.
And indeed it was a fair trial of speed, as for those early
minutes they competed over firm young turf (for many
hundreds of acres on this side of the Quorn country have
been redeemed to grass in the last few years), with low
level fences tliat could be taken anywhere and in the
gallo}). A dozen minutes they flew towards Burton —
and now their fox was plainly to be seen, toiling onward
a small half-field in front. Dodging a hedgerow, he
flung them off' for a moment ; and, when some twenty
minutes in all had passed, he had joined another of his
kind — the two crossing a fallow together. An instan-

SPORT IN SEASON.

109

taneous change of scent proclaimed a change of foxes — >
and, though they ran and hunted round Walton to
Prestwold, the life of the chase was gone. Finally they
had to give it up near Hoton New Spinney.

.^^'^^^^^^e:;::^!;:^^^^^^"^.

CHAPTER XII.

THE OLD YEAR OUT.

'HE old year went out happily enough through
the medmm of the Qaorn — who brought off a
,2Jli« hard and excellent run, and wound up 1883 in
befitting fashion. From Curate's Gorse they ran over an
immense tract of good ground between the hours of twelve
and four thirty — scouring, in fact, nearly the whole of their
Monday country. A slice of the vale of Bel voir, as we
all know, dovetails into Quorn territory between AVidmer-
pool and Wartnaby — the prettiest grass lining the basin
and continuing over the hills that rise on three sides.
Crossing, re-crossing, and circling it now, hounds first
spent an hour and a half within and about this charming
amphitheatre — then passing over the Wartnaby heights,
worked westward along the broad slope above the Valley
of the Wreake, till they had nearly reached Ratcliffe :
finally hunting till dark beyond Segrave and Burton.
How many foxes they ran it would be impossible to say ;
but apparently they were never off a line from find to
finish. Had they killed their fox, as seemed inevitable
when after the first hour he lay down in a fallow field,
the run might have taken rank with almost any of the

THE OLD YEAR OUT. Ill

season. Its prolongation ^Yas strongly typical of " too
mucli of a good thing." Men rode on with tired horses
till they could do no more, and long after they could
gather much pleasure from a country that grew better
and stiffer at every mile. That the huntsman could
work on undaunted under the dispiriting knowledge of
repeated changes of fox was a credit to his courage, as it
was a proof of his reliance on the endurance of his
hounds.

Widmerpool New Inn had been the meet — the thought
and sympathy of every Quornite being directed towards
Widmerpool Hall, where Major Robertson lay a sad
sufferer from the loss of an eye, destroyed by a thorn
during a recent day's hunting.

Nottinghamshire (as was only right ; for the rendez-
vous is, I see, within the bounds of the better cultivated
county) was quite as strongly represented as Leicester-
shire ; and altogether there were quite as many people
" on the ride " when a fox left The Curate, as hounds
could fairly be called upon to compete with. The
Belvoir had been within a field of the covert the day
before (in a good five-and-forty minutes from Sherbooke's
Gorse) ; and it was great luck that a bold fox, now so
ready to fly, should not have then been frightened away.
Hounds started not on the best of terms ; but could run
well on the grass, were helped over one ploughed field,
and after a couple of miles had settled into full swing.
Widmerpool bad been left to tlie right ; Willoughby was
the apparent point ; we could go nearly as fast as the
pack, but hounds were not easily to be pressed. What

112

THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

could be the meaning of a horseman galloping, hat in
hand, right into their faces and ours ? Of course that he
had " headed the fox " — a crime as heinous (however
involuntary), as anything in our social calendar, com-
parable only to the sin of ugliness in womankind. The
baser sinner in question belonged to a line of life whose

" he's turned right back, along the top kig o' the greensit piece."

first burden and duty, in return for wages received and
instruction imparted, is to be told home truths with a
timely plainness of language that defies mistake. But
this good man, unwarned by past visitations or totally
lacking the astuteness that (however imperceptible to the
eye of the looker-on) seldom fails to stand a second
horseman, or a street arab, in good stead, but helps him
out of many a difficulty — or, maybe, carried away by a
worthy excitement — must needs gallop almost into his
master's arms, shouting "He's turned right back, along

THE OLD YEAR OUT. 113

the top rig o' the greensit piece " (Aufjlire, the top ridge
qf the greensward — for he was evidently born of the
shire). Darkly as the many errors of his previous
life must have been held up before him by the same
tongue ; black and base antl unprecedented as his
conduct had been pictured many times and oft (till he
had come to regard a mere modicum of reproach as
positive approval), I doubt if he ever truly realised his
unworthiness till now — when he almost cannoned
against his outraged employer. But let us draw a veil.
His feelings have doubtless been blunted long ago.
Ours should be somewhat callous (])robably are) after
that still harder taskmaster, the world, has ridden rough-
shod over us for an uncertain number of years. But
even we are still excitable ; sometimes almost enthusi-
astic— never more so than when we have safely issued
through the turmoil and anxiety of the earlier stages of
a burst to hounds, and for once have succeeded in joining
that chosen band of a score — or twain at the most — who
are reallv " seeinsr the run." At such times, in mind and
thought — or even, it may be, in words of haste — we are
apt to be just only to ourselves.

The first sharp edge of the gallop was now gone.
What took its place was bright enough ; but a quick
game of foUow-my-leader (where the country admits of
more than one or two leaders to show us where we may
ride in safety) is better than the scramble of a big field
all going the same pace, and when any little regard for
hounds on the part of an individual leads only to his
being at once thrust to the rear. Matters, and pace,

114) THE BEST SEASON ON" EECORD.

mended sensibly after the Fosse Road was recrossed and
as the chase swept down upon the railway by Old Dal by.
Hounds then ran lustily across the A'ale to the Wartnaby
Hills. Along- the brow they pushed cheerily — some
riders sticking to the vale, a greater number clinging to
the upper ground. From beneath^ the pack were plainly
to be seen working their way fast along the skyline, while
distant halloas proclaimed that Reynard had kept to the
ridge, even to Holwell Mouth. Indeed, as hounds and
their followers reached that covert, a fox was to be
viewed rising the opposite slope in the direction of Long
Clawson ; and, starting again on better terms with him^
the hounds drove him hard into the vale again, to a point
midway between that village and Nether Broughton.
Here he lay down for some minutes in a fallow, while the
huntsman cast round the field. Up he then jumped in
view ; and the odds were 100 to 1 on a speedy kill.
Bat he kept ahead of them still over the green meadows
round Nether Broughton, and regained the hills of
AVartnaby (1 hour and 30 minutes to now). Beyond
the smaller spinney of Saxelby, he puzzled the pack for
a while ; and it was probably a fresh fox that took them
on, into and through Grimston Gorse. Thence by
Ragdale, Hoby, Thrussington, up to the ploughs of
Cossington and Segrave — mostly at a fair hunting pace,
and until darkness came upon them at no great distance
from their kennel doors.

A monster Christmas gathering was held at Brooksby
Hall on Friday, December 28th. The fog of previous
days had changed to a thin mist, through which the sun

THE OLD YEAR OUT. ll.j

sent Ills warmth, tliougli lie coiiLl not brighten it with
his rays. The meet being an obscure secret, only to be
circulated among subscribers, had been whispered abroad
so lavishly that all tiie forms of advertisement known to
Mr. AVilling could not have called together a fuller
concourse. As the hounds trotted off to draw Bleak-
moor, the jMelton road carried a mile of humanity, on
horseback and on wheels — trooping in close formation
from the trysting place beside the old church and Hall.
A primitive people, I am led to believe, compose the
population of the region round Brooksby — once a
thickly inhabited district, now only a manorhouse and a
garden- church, with squire and rector duly attached.
Each pasture surrounding it bears curious indentations,
mounds, and marks, denoting probably the site of former
buildings. But not till a week or so ago has any really
reliable explanation been forthcoming of their origin.
The " oldest parishioner " of the adjoining village was
asked for information — and promptly gave it as follows,
" Well sir, they do tell me as Squire Cromwell made
'em. Kind o' fortifications like. But I can't say as I
knowed him.''

I have no long story to tell of Friday. A beautiful
hunting day brought but little fruit. The morning fox
was found among the small plantations in the neighbour-
hood of the meet : and all that was of passing interest
in the short-run ring concentrated in the difficulty and
disasters of a single impediment — which fairly "held
up " a hundred people till hounds might have been two
parishes away, and to all appearance were. A water-

]16 THE BEST SEASON ON RECOllD.

course bad been diverted Into a new and clean-cut
cliannel some ten feet broad and about as many deep.
A bank remained beyond, a horse's length across, and a
stout post-and-ralls made up a double-fence, of a fashion
with which neither we nor our horses are as yet familiar.
FIrr was rldins: a clever black that had ij-raduated in
Ireland ; so made no bones of the combination. The
next pair refused, the second fell in, the third fell over.
Then came a complete jam. Everybody wanted to have
it at the same spot, and everybody got in everybody
else's way. The former bed of the stream ten yards to
the rear prevented a fair run at any other point of the
new cliannel. So there ensued at least ten minutes
jostling agony, while twenty people dribbled over — -then
at last it was discovered that a bridire existed within a
hundred yards, and relief came with the discovery
that hounds were at fault by the Melton road. To con-
clude in a word — the day held no run at all.

Last week, by the way, was a singularly unlucky one
for Sir Bache and his field. In the fog of Thursday two
couple of good hounds ^vere cut up by a train ; Col.
Gosling had a crushing fall over wire ; Mr. Tailby
staked a valuable horse, and Mr. Fernie had a similar
misfortune. Truly this pleasant open winter has not
been without its equivalent sum of mishaps.

CHAPTEE XIII.

THE XEW YEAR IX.

(^%(^ TRULY grand clay's sport was tliat of Monday,
cj(£fc-*\ January 7tli, with the Quorn. In the morn-
eMj^^S^ ing they ran a six-mile-and-a-half point in
forty-three minutes. In the afternoon they ran for an
hour without any absokite check, only abandoning pur-
suit when, half an hour later, darkness found every horse
completely tired. Both runs carried them far over the
border into the Duke's territory ; and both took them at
a great pace over much beautiful ground. So rapid,
stirring and profuse were the events of the day, that pen
and head fairly stagger at the task of setting them even
in skeleton shape before the public. In fiincy I may still
see the shifting stage, and its many actors flitting before
me. But much of course I was not in a position to see,
and much I failed to grasp in that turmoil of happy
action. Besides (freely as by friendly indulgence I am
allowed to presume), I have no licence to deal with men
and their doings merely as if they were there to serve the
purpose of the public and the printer's devil. I may,
however, state a number of those who comprised the
company ; and in sketching the sport shall crave the use

]1S THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

of an occasional name as tlie prominence of its owner
may compel.

At tlie meet at Old Dalby were Mr. Coupland, liis son,
and Miss Webster, Lady Wilton, Lady Cardigan, Lord
Belper and Miss Strntt, Mr. and Mrs. Pennington, Major
and Miss Starkey, IMr. and Miss Chaplin, Miss Living-
ston, tlie Dnke of Portland, Lord Manners, Gen. Cliippin-
dale. Col. Percy, Col. Forester, Capts. Smith, Henry,
O'Neal, Ashton, Hill-Trevor, Campbell, Goodchild, ]\I.
Deschamps, Messrs Brocklehnrst, Beaumont, Behrens,
E. Chaplin, Cheney, Cradock, Cochrane, Forester,
Lubbock, C. W. and Ft. IMartin, Miles, 0. and W. Paget,
Parker, Pole Carew, Pry or, Praed, Turner- Farley,
Henton, Knight, Marshall, Pearson, Simpkin, Smith.

The soft west wind of the early morning had veered
a trifle to the north ; and had a bite al)out it that — added
to arising glass, wet ground, and a quiet sky — portended,
nay, for once made a certainty of scent. It needed onl}^
the sight of the leading couples flying up the fiillow above
Grimston Gorse to show the certaint}^ confirmed (for a
first ploughed field is a sure criterion of scent in a grass
country). Their fox had found himself, and crossed the
railway cutting as the field was leisurely taking its place
on the tunnel above. The huntsmen was for the
moment pent within the covert ; while, struggling and
straining forth one by one, the eager hounds worked
their way to the head, with the marvellous celerity that
distinguishes a highly bred and level pack. The body
of them were through the small sqnare wood of Saxelby
close by, and were streaming up the green hillside

THE NEW YEAR IN. 119

beyond, ere the readiest Iiorsemen liad dipped the first
valley. Tlic bridle road to AVartnaby took hounds and
men together for the first half-mile, and tempted many a
rider too far along its ready path.

Ye gods, how they fly ! The mottled pack, now run-
ning in a broad mass, is skimming up the second grass
field in front ; we are crowding through a gateway, into
a rough meadow that is built for anything but rapid
galloping. But spurs must go in, knees must press, and
liorses must be driven hard — whether those wet green
furrows are as boggy as they look, whether the grass-
hidden grips can catch us in the stride, or even if the
effort is at the cost of wind and streno-th. The Duke of
Portland is the only man within close hail of the pack ;
and is making the best of such a chance on his good bay
mare (the plum of Mr Younger's recent sale). The
fences are just what they should be when good turf leads
up to their feet, viz., broad, strong, fair and clean. They
come easy now, with the last hound flicking through
each, as we skim the one before, with never a moment
for the veriest coward to funk or crane. How" long this
may last we know not. Suffice it that we conjure no-
thin cr better for the seventh — or seventeenth heaven.
There are some awkward ravines and gullies in this
happy district, we know only too well — and the Wartna-
by Bottom has been a terror and a hindrance to genera-
tions. Here it is, by all that's disappointing and terrify-
inir — with its black fence frowniu:2: and its brookbanks
yawning. But again do fox and hounds of themselves
help us in dire extremity. AVe knew of no bridge or

120 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

opening for a mile — and here, as in blank despair we
follow men and liounds into tlie lowest corner, an old
hidden gate is flung open by the foremost horsemen, and
we are free to hurry forward at our best. On the big
pasture opposite Wartnaby Hall, a flock of sheep dash
across the front of liounds ; a man stands in his gig in
the open road above, pointing onwards towards Cant's
Thorns. The fox no doubt had eyes as ready and keen as
those of the passing traveller ; but the swing of the pack
in their own forward cast takes in the turn without a
second's loss of time : and with undiminished pace they
are onward over a succession of tight little meadows at
the back of Kettleby. Capt. Smith and Mr A. Brockle-
hurst land together into the road by the village — Firr
joining them at the same instant as if from the clouds ;
for certainly no other man could have made up the
ground within fifteen minutes of extricating himself from
the gorse, fufly fifty people being then between him and
hounds. The little brown is almost burst by the effort ;
but, very shortly afterwards, Mr Coupland snatches an
opportunity to change horses — setting his huntsman on
the grey — while a moment's breathing time easily enables
the blown one to bring the Master to the end of the run.
Another unjumpable bottom is to be crossed where
bullocks have put fence and brook on the same level,
and where only a hurdle answers all purposes of winter
gap-mending. How thankful we are — but how mamj
yards we lose when such an outlet has to be carefully
forded or a gate has to be unlatched ! And on a day
like this we can almost measure by ear the distance of

THE NEW YEAR IN. 121

the flying' pack — so clear and sharp and regidar is its
rapidly fleeting mnsic. Now we are in the Nottingham
and Melton road. Where are the hounds that we hear
so plainly ? Yonder they flit by the railway side (the
Holwell ironstone track). We have ridden the exact
reverse of the line already this year with the Belvoir —
and to this perhaps we owe the gallop of to-day. But
what is really curious lies in the fact that we shall ride
these very fences, creep these very holes, open these
very gates, in a second run to-day. Let that remain. I
promise myself and you to inflict no minute repetition.
'Tis all I can do to separate two runs so oddly en-
tangled.

The next I remember in this hurried chase is half a
dozen hot-faced men huddled in a corner — looking one
to the other for assistance, and each lookuig less capable
than the other of giving it. A new white oxer in front,
a drop beyond — two refusals against the side fence — and
" bellows-to-mend " all round. But the good sorrel war-
horse, that has become almost as famed and familiar as
his master, is equal to this or any other similar occasion.
The white rails are shown to be no impossibility — and
the next comer, bringing still further evidence, and
weight, to bear, removes their self-assertion altogether.

The pack runs the waggonway for half a mile ; most
of us run it a mile, and join the bridleroad throng from
AVartnaby, Kettleby, and Holwell. But ^Mr. Cochrane
carries out the principle of seiiiores priorcs by boring a
way through the overhanging bullfinch alongside — and
carries out also the huntsman and a grateful following

122 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOKD.

from tlie trammels of tlie waggonway — though he bears
an honourable scar on his cheek for the rest of the day,
perhaps for the rest of the week. The covert-lmed
glen of Old Hills is at this time just to the right ; and we
top the hill to double two more roads, to leave Clawson
Thorns wide on the left — and to gallop up to another
ironstone railway. (It has been my fate to write of
hunting for some fifteen years- — and I aver, in sorrow
and in tiuth, that the word railway is at the end of my
pen at least fifteen times oftener now than when I was
first entered to ink.) An old man fumbles willingly at
the padlocked gates by his farmside : Firr rides luck-
lessly down to another pair of" white gates some fifty
yards away, where there are not even a pair of clumsy
willing hands with a key — while in anguish of soul he
marks bold and bedraggled" Reynard toiling up the next
field, hounds a hundred yards behind him, and a flock of
sheep scuttling between. Who shall say that a hunts-
man's career is without its agony? To make matters
worse, two quarrymen stoutly aver that they have stood
for quite a quarter of an hour in the very gateway
through which the fox has actually passed ! Such is in-
formation from the passing clod, whose eyes, startled
from accustomed vacancy or the ground, have risen to
the coming fray. But lor the quarrymen, but for the
sheep, but for the locked railway gates, that fox might
have been handled within half an hour. As it is, he is
able to stay above ground for iive-and-forty-minutcs, and
to bring his brush safely to the main earths in Goadby
Gorse — his point and goal throughout. This little check

THE NEW YEAR IN. 123

is tlie only one of a straiglit and superb gallop. Recog-
iiising familiar ground as we go, we find ourselves
opening two of the bridle gates by wliicli we canter from
Melton to a meet at Piper Hole. Now we are bearing
down upon the Spinney of Scalford Bog (the fences
liappily diminishing in size as jumping power fades) ; and
now Capt. Ashton views the beaten fox once more just
before hounds. At the little hamlet of Wykeham, mid-
way between the villages of Scalford and Goadby Mar-
wood, foot-people are running, shouting, and pointing on
both sides. One fox has passed between- the houses ;
but the hounds never leave their game, race him up the
road, and dash into Goadby Gorse — only to worry and
tear at the tiles of the artificial earth instead of wetting
their teeth on his savoury sides. So a gallant fox lives
■ — after as true and honest a gallop as ever did credit to
the Quorn, or helped to make a season famous.

But seldom does it happen that a day boasting of one
great gallop is blessed with another of almost equal
merit. In some respects the second of to-day eclipsed
the first. It was not so straight ; nor was it so decisive.
But hounds were going fast for a full hour before
checking at all — having of course changed foxes at some
period or otlier of the run. Had the two events taken
place on different days we should certainly have credited
the greater part of both to the same fox. As it is, we
cannot but believe the two heroes to have been mend)ers,
if not of the same flunily, at least of the same foraging
party.

"Wclby Fishpond is a combinate covert of willowbed

124. THE BEST SEASON OX EECORJj.

and gorse — the latter a two-year-old growth on a sunny
slope focing towards Melton (which is some three miles
away). A strong cluster of men (mostly on their second
horses) stood on the opposite hillside ; and bold Reynard
went away before their ftices, almost unasked. The
huntsman was out of covert, and hounds laid on in a
trice. From the very first they went to work with all
the briskness of the morning ; dashing hotly past the
little spinney of Cant's Thorns, and cutting almost at
once into the line they had travelled in the merry
forenoon. As then, they raced across the green
meadows of Kettleby Parish ; and soon afterwards
crossed the Holwell waggonway for Old Hills. Now
again our friend fox came to the rescue — pointing out
where, and where only it was possible to cross the
double-timbered barrier. A twenty-feet breach had
been left in the woodwork as if for this special occasion ;
and by this means men were able to dive in-and-out of
the Old Hills gully with the hounds, and fairly steeple-
chase after them, over the road and down the valley
beyond — pointing for Scalford Village exactly as in the
morning. A close little knot of riders made up the first
flight this afternoon — including, among others, and in
addition to the few whose names have already been set
down in connection with the first run. Lord Bel per and
Capt. O'Neal, Mr. and Mrs. Pennington, Mr. and ]\Iiss
Chaplin, Major and iMiss Starkey, Mr. Ijcaumont,
Mr. Hume, Mr. Newton, &:c. IMost of these had held an
equally good position in the former gallop; and, in trutli,
to the three ladies reallv belonfr the honours of the dav,

THE NEW YEAR IN. 125

for eacli liad but one horse to depend upon — wliereas
Capt. Smith and Capt. King' were abnost the only men
carried by the same horse throughout. But now hounds
swung sharp to the right ; carried us over the Melton-
and-Scalford road ; and led us over the ford below
Melton Spinney (pace and ground still as good as ever).
Between the covert and brook they ran on without
giving us a moment's pull ; and beat everyone as they
turned over the hill for Thorpe Arnold. A still further
bend to the left made it seem as if cither their fox must
be beat or that they had changed on to one of less
boldness of purpose. Still they drove hard and sped on
— the wet ground ready to retain an}^ and every scent
to-day. The Thorpe Arnold brook was forded ; and
men hurried up the plough to the Melton-and-Waltham
road, straining hard to get on terms with hounds — now
almost undiscernible through a quarter-of-a-mile of thin
driving mist. Fox and hounds threaded the road for fully
a mile-and-a-half ; but some passer-by headed the former
from the Broom Covert, and turned him again over this
ridge of plough to the left of AValtham. Over hill and
dale (now again upon grass) men — and even the ladies
mentioned — struggled on with tired and feinting horses.
In this plight they had to jump the little brook by
Chaldwell village ; and shortly afterwards found them-
selves at Wykeham, close to where the last run had
ended. A sudden turn back brouo-ht them a^-ain to the
brook, over which they had just scrambled ; and those
who had strength enough left under them rejoined many
comrades who had failed to cross the stream at all. The

126 THE BEST SEASON OX EECORD.

country side — and especially tlie Waltliam road — was by
tins time freely dotted with beaten horses ; and a gallop
could scarcely have been raised among the little party
still with hounds. But, for the first time since the find,
the pack now came to slower hunting — and thus they
worked back to Melton Spinney. At every moment
was a kill expected, and ardently prayed for. But
failing light and ftiiling horses put an end to the hope :
and, as the hunt again reached the edge of Melton
Spinney, Mr. Coupland decided to give the word for
home, and to leave the covert undisturbed.

The following will speak for itself as having been
penned previous to the above brilliant Monday.

To conclude the first week of the New Year — Friday,
Jan. 4th, was perhaps the hottest day, Saturday certainly
the wettest, of a so far unbroken season. A New Year,
besides pointing its thousand morals, means that another
season is already half over — and we wake to the fact
almost ere thoroughly warmed to work. Late weeks —
though open, pleasant, and redolent of health and good
company — have been marked with but few strong
episodes to instance and notify the lapse of time. We
have gone a-hunting as regularly as we have come home
Avith a staunch appetite, and seldom without sport —
often indeed with a flush of it. The only anxiety for the
morrow has been the horse, a decently sound horse, and
a horse that would do us no discredit. A second-rate
brute is certain, in ten minutes at the most, to show up
himself, and you, in this drastic country and company.
He may not fall. He may gallop ; he may not refuse ;

THE NEW YEAR IN. ]27

lie may scramble over the line. Bat lie puts you at the
mercy, and as it were at the feet, of others. He does
what lie is obliged ; and does that badly. He has no
soul, no enterprise, no love for the business — and dares
you to indulge in the ephemeral prompting of ambitious
foolino;. You can't leave him at home : for what with
the young ones going lame, and the old ones going sore,
the weather mild, everybody hunting every day, he must
take his turn — and you (not I, for we never confess to
our fixilures) must make the best of a bad bargain.

But, as I was about to say, runs sterling, fast, and
decisive — such as we like to consider and report as
typical of Leicestershire — have not been freely illustrating
the pages of its recent history. A grand and very
venerable authority, the Rev. John Russell (whose lately
published Memoirs should move the heart of every fox-
hunter) gave it as a doctrine that there " is never a scent
on a quite still day." Now the weather of late has been
heavy, dull and oppressive — and the sport has kept tune
to it. If I may dare to propose an amendment on a
subject so inscrutable, I would suggest autumn stillness
and winter imid (never a brewing or growing storm) as
possible conditions — founded on recent seasons. But let
older heads rebuke me — bidding me Hold my j^eace, and
Look out for a run that may come at any time !

Barometer and thermometer, however, had better be
put to a practical use — if comfort in riding be an object.
I mean on the minor point of how to clothe. Hot
leathers and Newmarket "sweaters" (I make no apology
for touching on articles of apparel that in these en-

128 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

llglitened days are held to be not out of place on feminine
lips, nor even, I am induced to believe, on feminine limbs
and frames) should not be donned when thermometer
registers 45° and barometer is at the top of the tree with
a southerly wind. Positively it was a shocking spectacle
on Friday, to the eye of anyone who set store on the
personal appearance of his intimate friends ! A melting
mood in practical sympathy might well be pardoned to
the observer, when all around him were bathed in a
midday moisture defying any delicate synonym. And
all this in pursuit of a twisting, twirling fox — or rather,
of hounds they could not reach, by reason of the devas-
tating railway that ruins the Scraptoft and Keyham
re<^ion. If any individual exception could combat the
overpowering heat it was the bold rider " whose cheeks
were fanned, on the other hand, by the galloping grey,
seeu boltiug away " (For remainder, see Ingarsby
Legends, Trial Canto).

This Quorn Friday commenced at Keyham, with all
the honours of a fite Leicestrian and a show of equipage
and equestrianism that did credit to our flourishing city.
But the clement flooding the covertside at Scraptoft was
the schoolboys — who came in such shoals as Leech never
dreamed of when he drew his picture of Home for the
Holidays. What funny little fellows on funny little nags
were many of them I I am not referring thus presump-
tuously to the sturdy thrusters just sprouting into man-
hood— who are dubbed mashers almost ere breeched and
birched, and who are encased in collars so lofty that their
young elders of Melton and Meynell have been utterly

THE NEW YEAR IX. 1^9

put to shame, and are now forced to liold a double-roiind-
choker to be the only proper throat hxsh for hunthig-men
over twenty-and-three. No, these upper teens are a
splendid body of rising chivalry — that will replace us and
oust us, long before we want to clear out, or have even
reached the stage of heading foxes by " sinking the wind."
But it is noticeable at this festive and family period that
men, with whom "only the other day" we were con-
tentedly classed as "young fellows," are now to be seen
each with his ruddy offspring (single, double, or in
triplets) behind him— the youngsters on shaggy ponies,
which cheerfully and confidingly hob-nob against the
paternal hocks and make our blood run cold by titivating
the flank of the most notorious kicker in the field.
Papa's quiver would probably stand a call upon it quite
as readily as his sorely tried purse. But Providence has
fortunately more consideration for the former than for the
latter — and the small Nimrods survive to be paid for, in
spite of all the perils of a Quorn Friday.

The Scraptoft fox turned at Ingarsby after his first
mile, and when there was no apparent need for his doing
so. Afterwards he had little choice, as he found himself
amid chains of carriages and streams of horsemen. But
stealing away from the entanglement he made nearly a
six-mile point to Gaddesby, by way of Barkby Holt, and
was rattled to death in three cheese-plate circles rour.d a
stiff close country twixt Gaddesby and Queniboro'. (An
hour and a half of hot hard work, at least for the man
who had to kill him.) I wish the same end had been in
store for the Ashby Pastures fox of the afternoon — the

130 THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

same, no doubt, that about three weeks ago also zig-
zagged so curiously. Well, he played the same trick to-
day, to a still less temperate field — and, believe me, not
even a hound was killed. But he must soon surely have
the death of a couple or two at his door — unless his mask
is speedily nailed over the kennel, or these Quorn Fridays
are held at Bunney.

Saturday, Jan. 5, opened so fair and fine for the Cottes-
more meet at PIckwell that we had never a thought of a
wetting, and there was never a waterproof — scarcely a
shabby coat or hat — in the field. About tiiis time of the
year we begin to replenish our kits, or to bring coat or
habit out of the silver paper from which \vc were loath to
release it too soon. And a lawn meet such as Pickwell,
whereat at least three Hants will be represented, must
ever constitute an occasion demanding our smartest
apparel. So we were all smiles at the meet — unless the
new garment was not forthcoming, and the old one was
felt to be wofully threadbare, or — worse still — if the new
vestment of our heart's vanity was felt to be a misfit and
a failure. But exactly in a contrary ratio did our spirits
rise or fall, when the drenching rain began as we neared
the Punchbowl. But this has little to do with the sport.
Nor, for once, had the Punchbowl. It was with the second
fox that a straight gallop of five-and-twenty minutes was
enacted, to put men on pleasant terms with themselves and
the day. They found him in Berry Gorse ; and, though
in three fields it was obvious that there was only lialf a
scent, he ke])t his head bravely up the wind — and hounds
made all possible ca})ital of the indulgence. They took

THE NEW YEAR IX. 131

US a riglit good line — and fortunately did not liuny us
over the brook on the Burton Flat. Three or four men
jumped it ; many others scrambled in and out ; and there
was ample time to go round. But over the top of Gar-
tree Hill (just avoiding the covert) they made the pace
much better ; and, leaving Great Dalby to the right,
went straight and nicely to the earths between Adam's
Gorse and Thorpe Satchville in the Quorn countr}'.
Had the test, of country and pace, been yet more severe,
tliere were riders with hounds quite equal to meeting it —
for instance Mr. Bainl, Lord Manners, Major Starkey,
Capt. Smith, Capt. Blair, Messrs. Barclay, Beaumont,
Brocklehurst, Arthur Coventr}", Deschamps, G. Farquhar,
Jacobson, Marshall, Pennington.

K 2

CHAPTER XIY.

ONE AYEEk's WOKK.

^,,, /^^IIE sport of sucli a season as tins puts a heavy
©jj'') — even if a bappy — burden on tbe poor
c3ii^ recorder. He bas all tbe difficulties witb
wbicb otbers are contending — e.g. a stricken purse, over-
worked liorses, an infatuated zest for tbe sport, perbaps
a feeble frame — supported only by a bealtby appetite and
after-dinner somnolence, and a strong dislike to remain-
in<'- at borne in fair buntinir weatber wben otbers are
riding gaily to bounds over (may I repeat tbe well-tried
assertion?) tbe very best countries in England. To see
tbe sport, be sliould be abroad and in tbe saddle. To
write of it, be sliould be at liome with tbe pen. If tbe
Gulf Stream bas really cbanged its course and warm
winters are to be tbe steady rule, TJtc Field sbould in
common iairness go witb tbe tide and provide eacb of
its correspondents witb an amanuensis, wlio sball put our
post-prandial memories into more readable sbape tban
can be ex|)ected of drowsy frames and rein-worn fingers.
Even tbe luxury of an bonest cropper must be denied to
tbe weekly scribbler, lest its effects sbould interfere witb

OXE WEEK S WORK. 133

his Thursday's wool-gatlierlng. And yet even he cannot
be carried to hounds in a band-box.

Given open and favourable weather, January must at
all times bo the best and steadiest huntincr month of the
year. All the foxes are then strong and capable ; and
horses and hounds have just attained thoroughness of
condition. A pack must run level now (temporary and
trifling ailments duly considered) if, as it should be, It is
built without a tail and topped of that most mischievous
of all incumbrances, a runaway head. Horses can now
do forty minutes without distress, where seventeen would
have settled them in November. And this year we ride
above ground and gallop and jump with the turf spring-
ing under us. Ah, 'tis a jolly season ! Sliall we look for
many like it?

The Quorn and the Belvoir put their stamp on the
concluding days of the week ending January 12th —
carrying on the wave of sport, and proving once more
how a brilliant scent will come for a period rather tlian
for isolated days. Nothing could — to all appearance —
have been more unfavourable than Friday, with black
clouds being driven across the sky in a gale of wind, and
a storm of cold rain making us all miserable before noon.
The morning was horrible, the middle of the day detest-
able, and if we resisted example and a strong inner
prompting for home (when even from Thorpe Trussels
hounds were utterly helpless on an afternoon fox) — it was
only from fear of the dread epithet " chalk," or from some
former pitiful memory of a run achieved after we had
" turned home to tea." But the huntsman laboured on,

134 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

and most of us followed — holding to our liats, and in the
bustle of movement at least beginning to cease our shiver-
ing and feel our feet. If the country was familiar, one
could not fail to mark that the snug little copse of Adam's
Gorse was not altogether left out of calculation in the
huntsman's final cast. AYe remembered that foxes were
said to have been bred here ; and we knew that hounds
had not been in it this season. So possibly we were near
enough to see the whip's cap go up, and hounds spring
ibrth without horn or holloa. The old Burrough steeple-
chase course — some of the nicest riding and best scenting-
ground in the Hunt's possession — lies just over the brow;
and right merrily now we all larked over it — led by Lord
Rathdonnell, Mr. Farquhar, and the rider of all others to
whom it has been a scene of triumph in the past. Hounds
were close after their fox ; and did not mean to let the
advantage slip — though, twice before reaching Gartree
Hill, he left the open fields and followed the roads like a
deer. The storms had passed awa}'', and the evening was
bright and clear. Scent had improved wonderfully ; and
they ran on at once, fiist as before, even over several deep
rough ploughs beyond the covert. Regaining the grass
they reached Berry Gorse, and held on across the Burton
Flat at a fast hunting pace — till they reached the river
opposite Brentingby. Leaving one or two of their
pursuers in a branch stream, and forcing on all but Mr.
Leatham a long detour, they were soon in ]\lr. Burbage's
Covert, and very soon out of it. By this time they had
been running more than half an hour ; and their fox was
rapidly coming to hand. So, though he gained some

ONE week's work. 135

little gToinul at tlie village of Burton Lazars, tliej easily
tired liiiii down in another turn across the Flat, ran him
from scent to view, and pulled him down as he reached
a little spinney within a Cj[uarter of a mile of Stapleford
Park. To bring- off a run so satisfactory on a day so
unpropitious, was another laurel leaf in the Quorn wreath
of '83-84. This chase occupied altogether about an
hour, and covered an area between five and six miles in
diameter.

The Bel voir on Saturday (Jan. 12 th) ran us nearly all
to a standstill, in a tremendous gallop backw^ards and
forwards between their own country and that of the
Quorn. A slight rime frost and a bright sun rather
hindered s})ort in the morning ; but made the day a
delightful contrast to blustering yesterday (the bitter
chill of which seemed to cling- to our very marrow still).
So from Old Hills they hunted under difficulties for up-
Avards of an hour, crossing the border, and proceeding to
return the compliment paid by the Quorn on the previous
Monday. After escaping from Holwell and its labyrinth
of iron tramway, after i)assing Kettleby and nearly reach-
ing AVartnaby, the hunt seemed to be over and luncheon
became the order of the day. Happy they who seized it,
and their second horses, before the alarm was sounded —
or rather was whispered in startled accents — that the fox
had jumped up in view, and hounds were aicaij. Away
they truly were, Avith a long long start — running very
differently from the toilsome fashion of the morning. A
mile of gates took us by Welby Fishpond, another mile
of bridleroad landed half-way back to Old Hills ; and

13G THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

now tlie first wliip liad reached tlie hounds, and we could
at least take our dh'ection from them, instead of remain-
ing longer mere blind atoms of a rushing torrent.
Beyond Old Hills things became pleasanter still. And
the hurry became less for a moment as we neared Seal-
ford Village, by which time horses were already panting
and choking. Here again we were in an entanglement
of railways — and the sad disaster that had befallen the
Fitzwilliam the day before came vividly to mind. The
beautiful Belvoir dogs, however, tln-eaded the network
unscathed — followed thromrh the intricacies bv some few
horsemen, among whom Mr Watson of Carlo w was a
prominent figure. The rest of us clattered the road
through the village ; and the whole party reunited as
hounds turned along the brow to ]\Ielton Spinney. One
couple of hounds drove over the bordering fallow right
into the covert ; but the body (probably on a fresh fox)
bore yet more to the right and dashed on faster than
ever. The ford let us through the brook beneath the
covert, and an archway let us under the railway, and so
we hurried towards Melton. The line of country hither-
to crossed had, with the exception of the difficulties about
Scalford Village, been remarkabl}^ easy. It was the
same for yet another mile or so ; but, as horses grew
tired and lunfrs irave out, the fences became less amen-
able — and natural, and heavy, consequences followed.
Each field saw some new falling off, or falling down; and
as hounds passed behind Sysonby their following was
not a tenth part of that of the forenoon. Still at a racing
pace — and again over a useful well-gated country — the

ONE week's work. 137

pack regained Welby Fishpond ; bnt, as before, passed
without touching the covert, and turned leftward towards
Ashfordby. At length — after forty-five minutes'
incessant hard going — there came the long-needed check.
But in another minute they were off once more, and the
appalling environs of Ashfordby were entered. To ride
over the close giant fences surrounding this village is a
very high trial to the best of horses in his first freshness.
To find a way across them now was an obvious impossi-
bility ; and road-riding became again compulsory. The
delighted satire of the village wits was freely flung after
the jaded and mud-bespattered party. But the latter,
surviving the ordeal, made up their ground quickly by
the aid of the resounding granite ; and were soon able to
rejoin the pack among the pastures towards Grimston.
Of a sudden hounds stopped short by a brookside
plantation — every head going up as if in doubt and
wonder. Those who noticed the occurrence seem to
agree that here again ensued another change of foxes.
For, after this, the scent altered, and the fox before them
had strength to reach Shoby Scoles at least five minutes
in advance. But still tliey ran on- — ^hunthig their own
Avay, though no longer with fire and pace — to within half
a mile of Hoby Village. Thence in the fast-failing light
they worked back almost to Asfordby, giving up the
pursuit at 4.30. For some time the moon had been
eking out the twilight ; and quite two hours and a half
had been spent in severe running and hunting between
two points seven miles apart, and much of the ground
being covered twice over. The horses ridden by Gillard

138 THE BEST SEASON OX EECORD.

and Arthur might perhaps have histed a while longer ;
but, Avitli the exception of one or two second (or
third ?) horses recently picked up, scarcely another steed
had a gallop left in him. The remaining horsemen
consisted, if 1 am not mistaken, only of the Duke of
Portland, Major Starkey, Captains Boyce, Smith, and
Tennent ; Messrs. Beaumont, B. Burdett Coutts, Craw-
ley, G. Drummond, Foster, Knowles, Lubbock, Praed
and Pryor — watli Down's little son on the thiiest of
ponies !

With a kill after those forty-five minutes — and never
was a kill more truly earned — this run would have
been held a great event even in this truly wonderful
season.

Monday, Januar}^ 1-ith, too, with the Quorn, was
again more than an ordinary day. A first fox run down
in an hour ; and a second escaping only, and almost
literally, by the skin of his eyes, at the end of forty-three
minutes — may be taken as leading facts that almost
speak for themselves. The former was a handsome
leat ; the latter was a brisker, smarter, event — having
no claim to great honour, but thorough sharp foxhunting
from a curious beginning to a luckless end (I am not
going to tell ; the fox is a dumb animal ; and the hunts-
man never flings his tongue rashly).

The sport began at Thrussington Gorse (this year a
very fertile and fruitful spot). We had heard a dim
rumbling in covert — which might, or might not, have
meant a fox caught asleep. But this passed ; and the
huntsman's lona'-drawn note bade us move on to some

oxE week's work. 139

other place of search — wlien a pair of keen and well-
practised Yorkshire eyes found their reflex in a gorse
bush just over the bordering- edge. Reynard at once con-
fessed himself stared out of countenance ; gave up all
further hope of concealment ; and was off. All the chief
merit of this run lay with the huntsman. He worked
it up into a sharp finish and a meritorious end, and
brought his fox cleverly to hand. All the earlier part
of his labour was down a west wind, and before a field
of horsemen that left him and his hounds none too much
time. With a quick scent the pack might have slipped
everyone at Tlirussington Wolds, so straight and sharp
did their fox cut through the little wood and dodge the
plough teams beyond. (If ploughing and shepherding
were solely summer pursuits, how much straighter would
our foxes ran !) But, after a half-circle towards Old
Dalby, we once more found ourselves returning by Lord
Aylesford's covert and clustered for awhile above the
basin of Shoby Scoles. Thence up wind, over the old
pastures of the Hoby Lordship was the brightest part of
the journey, to all save misguided Reynard — who might
easily have trotted out of scent into the vale of Belvoir.
But so it was : and so they hustled him up the breeze
nearly to Cossington Gorse, and ate him almost on the
lawn of Ragdale Hall.

Walton Thorns for an afternoon fox and a new line^
a direction almost unknown to modern Quornites, but
one that they are only too ready to ride again as soon as
opportunity may be provided. North and north-west of
Six Hills (the central point of their Monday country) is

140 THE BEST SEASON OX EECOKD.

a wild, but almost level, upland district — spreading for
many miles in poor and often self-sown grass, that
carries a scent under almost any conditions of wind and
weather. (They went over much of it, about three
weeks since, in their great and lengthy run from Bunney
Park.) Other merits possessed by this unfomiliar region
are that it is slenderly inhabited, that it owns and
requires very little draining, riding wet and sound
throughout the winter, and that its hedges are just what
you would pick out as schooling-material for a very
third-rate or untaught horse. Indeed, I am inclined to
think that — taking into consideration the further fact
that the ditches are never cleared of briars and grass —
an indifferent hunter, well cautioned with whip and spur
for each fresh effort, is really a safer conveyance over
such trlwcs than a bold flighty horse that would toy with
an oxer. At least, if such is not the case (paradoxical
as the theory may seem), Monday showed that much
money has been spent in vain, and that even a couple of
hundred (paid, too, on the nail) will not always keep a
liorse on his legs. So much for the country over which
we now disported for some forty and odd minutes. Our
fox went well and far when once lairly started on his
way. But foxes see, and perhaps imagine, as many
dangers besetting their path as we find In ours — their
objects of dread being man and beast, ours the mere
frail creation of carpenter, hedge-cutter, and over-fed
i'ancy. In his first curious turn hounds ran over, and
snapped up, another fox nestled in a iallow ; but after
leaving Mr. Cradock's S})inney they held Ibrward in a

ONE week's work. ]41

distinct direction, and foster as tliey went. In ten
minutes more tlie inijuiry as to "where we were" went
in vain from mouth to mouth — so new aiid nnridden Avas
the region. We found our whereabouts for the moment,
as we passed above Wimeswohl vilhige and threatened
Cossington Gorse ; but speedily lost it again till some
single individual could explain that the village just before
us was Wysall. Hounds were driving very sharply now
— running for blood, their fox scarcely one field before
them. Well, his good fortune had a prior claim. And
there my story ends.

On Thursday January ITtli, Mr. Coupland gave a
byeday at Prestwold to the Loughboro' ball-goers. The
Melton division also trooped in to join the colours ; and
the ]\Iaster could not do less than adapt his bill of fare
to the occasion created. So after Hoton New Spinney
he trotted on to Ellar's Gorse — but our old and worship-
I'ul acquaintance was not to be caught napping, even on
a byeday, and stole away as soon as he heard the caval-
cade trotting down the road.

A brilliant burst from the Curate, however, retrieved
the day, and revived the sinking spirits of the weary
ones, who had trifled so unadvisedly with hours that — at
least while sport and weather last — should be devoted
only to carrying us forward from hunting-day to hunting-
day. I should have mentioned that a weak fox had
already been run into in ten minutes from Willoughby
Gorse. ]^ut the one from the Curate gave two and
thirty minutes' rapid and excellent fun, l)efure the pack
bowled him over in the vale by Hick ling. Post time

142 THE BEST SEASON ON RECOKD.

precludes full particulars. But though liouuds were
baffled at starting by a sheepdog, they never left the line
again, dipped into the Yale of Belvoir at Upper
Broughton, liung most of their followers up among the
wire by Nether Broughton, did the same in that horrid
and dastardly network by Sherbrooke's Covert (after
crossing the Broughton brook and causing much grief
also there), and swept into their fox in a big pasture
adjoining Hickling Church. As for as I can venture to
express an opinion, three heavy weights, Capt.
Townshend, the Duke of Portland, and Mr. Knowles
beat all the lighter men.

A little story comes to light this week illustrating only
too lamentably the uncertain reward of humanity. All
sportsmen are by nature sympathetic and humane — even
though the feeling carries them quite as often with the
pursuer as with the object of his pursuit. Is not the
followinsr a nice instance of overstrained benevolence ?

O

His Lordship's hounds had their fox almost in extremis
— as may be guessed from the fact that he took refuge
in the outhouse of an old lady's cottage. TJie kindly
dame, perceiving his entrance, promply turned the key
— vowing that, come what might, the poor tired thing
should have a night's lod^'inii; and refm!,-e from his
enemies. Hounds and huntsmen bustled about her
tenement in vain inquiry ; while the old lady hugged the
secret and her key, and indulged in gentle chuckling
over her deed of mercy. The cruel marauders retired in
disappointment ; the good soul went to bed to dream of
charity and kindness to all creation — leaving her lodger

ONE WEEKS WORK.

143

to a nlglit of well-earned rest. Rising: earlier tlian
usual next morning-, and having studiously refrained
from communicating her cherished secret to a soul, she
quietly opened the outhouse door ; and with a scream of
delight — bordering in the ecstacy of the moment closely
on a view holloa — saw her furry guest rush gaily out,
with frame inviiijorated and with brush erect. This would

"SAW HEK FURRY GUEST RUSH GAILY OUT.

indeed be a triumph — an act of beneficence duly scored
— a feat to be reproduced in minutest detail at many a
cosy tea table ! Had poor Reynard been comfortable ?
Had he found a warm corner and curled himself on a soft
couch of sweet-smellinir hav ? Better still, he had made
himself a feather Led in the very middle of the floor.
Oh, heavens ! — those two Dorking pullets, pure bred and
already laving'! Heads and tails, winirs and feet lav
scattered in miserable testimonv. She had nursed a

144

THE BEST SEASON ON RECOllD.

viper ill her bosom — and lier lamentations rent the air
as she unfolded her bitter tale to her convulsed and
heartless fellow-villagers. The scent of a fox appeals no
more strongly to the nose of a hound than the mere
name of the artful one now stinks in the nostrils of
this kind old lady. / nunc^ ingratis^ offer te irrise
jjericlis.

CHAPTER XV.

E. G.

'!^^jr

a man but to write a single
sample, entitle it " A Day with
tlie Quorn," and set to work upon it as if the army of
hunting correspondents and descriptors had never been
called into being to wear a subject to its barest threads
— he might do worse than take Friday, January 18th,
for his subject. He would begin of course by drawing
a lively picture of the gay meet before the old feudal
Hall, descant upon the bevy of brightness and beauty on

146 THE BE8T SEASON ON RECORD.

the stone portal steps, enumerate a score or two of the
brave gentlemen — clad so trimly, even gaiidil}^, yet with
every point of their dainty attire so admirably adapted for
work — making their bow before mounting. He might
even pay a graceful tribute to the cup of welcome in
waiting within ; and thus refreshed (metaphorically only,
if his wisdom teeth be cut and the healthy recklessness
of early youth be his no longer) proceed to scan and of
course eulogise the pack which, by the way, never looks
so little worth eulogy as when shivering and petulantly
whining on a lawn. He would put each man on his
"well-known" brown, bay, grey, or chesnut — though
Melton alone has on its booivs about three hundred horses,
extraordinarily well-known to each Meltonian, it is true,
but lost from their very confusion of number to all the
profanum vuljjus beyond the walls of the metropolis, and
at least a hundred of which are at the present time mere
stable adornments — flourishing in leg buckets like hya-
cinths in drawing-room glasses, under the ruthless exac-
tion of an uninterrupted season. As a matter of fact, the
good old-flishioned sportsman, who never fails to give
himself, and the horse that is to carry him all day, at
least ten minutes alongside the pack at the meet, is a rare
bird on these waters. His sprightlier prototype never
goes to covert at less than three parts speed, and would
as soon think of being first man at a ball as an early
lounger at a meet. A smoking hack, a cool hunter —
another to follow — " good morning " while galloping
across the first field from covert, " good night " at the
last check, twelve miles an hour home, a hearty meal at

E. G. 147

5, a licavy one at <S.oO, perhaps early to nap, and late to
bed — " Oh," as the ex-guardsman exclaimed regretfully
of his " liquor-and-cards days," " them was times ! "
And this is how they do it now-a-days.

Having described all this, with a breadth of touch, a
depth of intimacy, and a license of foncy that are
altogether denied to the correspondent who makes one
of the daily party, and whose utmost indulgence must at
least be within the bounds allowed by the kindly good
fellowship that allows him to do his work at all — the
casual sketcher might employ a page of his book in
•depicting a view that, backed by the striking and historic
mound of the Coplow, appeals to the not-unromantic eye
of the sportsman as powerfully as any scrap of scenery in
the shire of Shires. With the holloa from across the
-valley, sending forth an outlying fox into the very midst
of the camp followers spread out over the park — his pen
and that of the weekly journalist must travel in the same
practical groove, and move onward, more or less soberly,
together. This hapless fox started with none of the
honours of war or circumstance of sport. No hero of a
gallant light was he to be — no glorious victim whose
■every relic should be counted a worthy troph}' — though
his heart may have been as courageous and his limbs as
stout as those of any traveller that ever defied the Quorn.
He woke in his stubblefield to find liimself face to face
with some noisy varlet, bethought him at once of Bag-
grave or Ashby Pastures or other distant refuge, and
pointed thither — only to be pounced upon in Quenby
Park by as fierce and persistent a colley dog as ever

14S THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

savaged a slieep or spoiled a run. The slieplierd dog-
was speedy enough to have coursed a hare, bundled poor
Eeynard over in fifty yards, and never left him till the
latter dragged his half-worried frame into a rabbit-hole,
by the railway-side.

Then was the order given for Billesdon Coplow, and
thence was the run — one hour and thirty-five minutes,
over a wild strong country, with the death of a grand fine
fox as a finish.

Botany Bay, a dense blackthorn covert at the foot of
The Coplow's wooded height, forms the real strength of
that time-and-song-honoured landmark. Though a road
bounds it on two sides, and the throng always spreads
round its outskirts on every side, it is difficult even for a
Quorn Friday field altogether to envelope it, or to prevent
a really bold fox from making his course. The centre ride
is the usual rendezvous for men who would be ready to
take any direction suggested by fox and hounds — and
nine times out of ten this is over the Coplow hill. To-
day was neither an exception nor a trial of patience —
for scarcely was the muddy ride fairly lined than the
clear air was broken by a chorus of halloas from beneath
the House, and Mr. Couplaud galloped out to set hounds
on the line of a ready rover. Through the gardens and
round the base of the covert-clad slope facing the village
of Billesdon scurried the anxious horsemen — blinded for
a while to what the hounds might be doing, but knowing-
only too well how difficult a country lay beyond, and
how often they had toiled over its steep green acclivities
in vain pursuit of a fast-vanishing pack. For the rough

E. a. 119

broken liills 'twixt The Coplow and Tilton, or Skeffing-
ton, carry a flying scent, grow whitethorn and blackthorn
in their stoutest shape, and so put a hunter to a test
requiring the climbing powers of a Welsh pony as well
as all the jumping talent of a Leicestershire hunter.
Now, the earliest and most eager had not circled the
base ere the leading hounds were seen breasting the
opposite slope, on which is situated what is always known
as Tomlin's Spinney. Two ploughed fields fill the
interval, and a well knitted stake-and-bound opposes tlie
rider halfway up the hill. Mr. G. Farquhar and Mr. H.
T. Barclay surmounted this, and were climbing to the
brow, at about the same pace and angle as flies on a
window pane, as Firr galloped down from the Coplow
with the body of the pack at his heels. Arrived at the
summit, the two were seen to separate — then, poising for
a moment on different points to scan the deep gullies
beyond, disappeared as utterly as the half dozen couples
of which they rode in search. So, from one hilltop to
another, the pair skirmished onward to keep the foremost
couples in sight ; and occasional glimpses, now of Mr.
Farquhar's black coat, now of ]\Ir. Barclay's shooting
jacket (the dishabille in keeping with a recent crushing
and scarce-recovered fall), now of the chestnut whisking
through a bullfinch, now of the bay topping a binder,
beckoned us, and guided the huntsman, in the required
direction. For a mile or so, over these rough hills and
pitches, the chase pointed towards Tilton ; then, bending
suddenly to the right, made Skeffington its apparent line.
Shepherd and liedgecutter were sounding a shrill duet

150 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

Oil the hillside near Billesdon windmill — gladly laving-
aside crook and billhook to throw all their energies into
voice and gesture and assume a part in "killing the fox."
If hunting ever ceases in the merry Midlands (of which in
all seriousness and sobriety we may surely hope it may
not) it will certainly never be through the ill-will of the
labouring classes on the spot. Every villager learns to
throw a view halloa, I'rom the hour that as a schoolboy he
cheers the jaded and irresponsive " hoonter " — or, as
they often term him in his w^orking robe, the " redman "
on his homeward way. Every ploughman (a vocation,
however, that in the grass countries has but a limited
demand) or farm labourer, whatever may be his employ,
looks to having his task pleasantly interrupted by horn
and hound at intervals during the winter months — and
never fails at once to break off work, lending all his
interest to the passing chase. (I cannot, by the way,
resist embodying in a brief parenthesis a summary of
occupation given me not many days ago, by a young
rustic working in the state of life in which he found
himself called. He earned a shilling a day, too — con-
siderably more than an ensign or sub-lieutenant when
his kit is paid for. " What was his chief job on the
farm?" Answer — "Knocking clods." "Good boy.
And what else ? " Answer — " Gathering clods." Now,
I appeal to that worshipful body, the Schoolboard — does
not a round of labour, so comprehensive, varied and
intellectual, of itself demand an occasional break, if only
to prevent the overstrained mind of the clodhopper fiDm
slipphig back to the level whence it is sujiposed to have

E. G. 151

been recently raised?) But this is tlie class to whom, of
all others, we most often owe cheery news of a fox in front.
Now its two representatives pointed gleefully where
Keynard had passed close by. " Huclt a big 'un, he
wur ! " And such a big 'un he proved to be when Firr
brushed him an hour and a quarter later. At this
moment the huntsman got all his hounds to the head ;
and, with the pack fully massed, found himself in a
country almost new to him, from his Quorn experience.
They had crossed the Uppingham turnpike (the marginal
line separating the hunting grounds of Sir Bache Canard
from those of the Quorn and Cottesmore. Skeffington
was on his left, Billesdon on his right, Rolleston in front,
and a wide sweeping succession of grassy hill-and-vale
all round. But, though the pace had been hist till now
— faster because of the difficulties that separated men
from hounds — it failed rather than improved under
bettered conditions. They went steadily on, however,
to Rolleston, past its covert, and out beyond towards
Goadby. A sharp turn to the left, and (by common
consent and encomium) some beautiful hunting, took
them to Keythorpe. Round the succession of spinneys
of that domain they followed their fox, and set afoot a
brace of others. ]>ut, happily averting a threatened
change, the huntsman dropped on to his now exhausted
quarry, drove him through another small plantation, and,
in two fields more, had the gratification and triumph of
standing over his stiffened remains on open ground.

CHAPTER XVL

HEARSAY.

'EARSAY is a commodity of so little value
that men of the world (am I right in excluding

^jt^Ss:adJi:^ the other sex?) accept it as so much loose
chaff, fit only to form a plaything for the winds, or to
accumulate in the stray corners of naturally empty
minds — seldom, if ever, to be gathered and stored for
the sake of any tangible worth it may possess. But
such a proper and well-earned estimate is, like all other
dogmatism, open to exception. Hearsay in the shape
of a mere ou dit — which, out of an indifferent acquaint-
ance with Gallic idioms, I take to infer tlie vapid ntter-
ance of nobody in particular, but ratlier the mere chance
gossip wdiich embraces every topic, affecting intimacy
with each, and proving no knowledge of any — is obvi-
ously worthless, but is rightly held liy the world at
large as being onl}^ a convenient medium through which
to discuss in safety, and with some additional piquancy,
the affairs of their neighbours. On J/^ship, indeed, is of
itself a branch of science, in which, of our frailty, we are
all too prone to dabble ; bnt the professors of which carry
with them a weight altogetlier out of proportion to the

HEARSAY. 153

school they represent or the art they demonstrate. An
on (h't-mcd\ fulfils a very important function in society.
I don't think that his fellow males regard him greatly —
thouo-h womenkind deli2:ht in him, and to them he is in-
valuable. He is the essential oil of their social gatlier-
inirs — whether these take the form of " little dinners " or
the lower grade of small tea-parties. " He knov,^s so
much about people, and has such a pleasant way of
communicating it ; " and so will keep a whole table
amused, upon topics in which tliey can all display an
interest. He has a role to perform, a character to main-
tain— and he is not going to mar the one or lose the
other for lack of information. It is nobody's duty — and
scarcely anybody's inclination — to " give him the lie "
when he trips gaily and pleasantly over the bounds of
truth into the fascinating fields of fiction. And the mis-
chief he does is worthy of the master who prompts him.

But hearsay of a different kind — and in a sense quite
opposed to that of chance gleaning from stray utterance
— that is to say, information acquired on a particular
subject from a practical mind striving only to convey
facts — should suffer little by having to be committed to
writing by a middleman. A^et I believe there is no topic
under the sun on which it is more difficult to arrive at
satisfactory detail and estimate at the mouth of others
than a run with hounds. (Of my own shortcomings in
this direction as narrator and commentator I am fully,
honestly, and lamentably conscious.) A very flist run is
seen but by a very few — even in this essentially hard-
riding country. Those few are up in their stirrups ; have

154 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

been drinking nectar with the gods ; and are rapturous
over the Elysium of which they have had a ghmpse.
Am I right in saying that their number seldom exceeds
half a dozen — the every move and turn of whom has
depended on what they could see of the leading hounds?
Certainly I am, in referring to our best and strongest
country — and leaving out altogether the great open hills
of High Leicestershire, where men must more often ride
in the distant wake of hounds than comfortably to them — •
for the fences do not ofter openings enough for more,
and the very crowd prohibits even the keenest and
readiest riders from invariably securing a front place.
Of these fortunate few, the best man of all perhaps is one
who, though he has ridden the country for twenty years,
still gathers a double enjoyment from his hunting in
never knowing where he is ; another is a new comer,
riding his hardest in a strange country, or even perhaps
a foreigner who can scarcely find his way to the meets ;
a third has been riding a " handful," who left him no
leisure for looking about him ; a fourth lives for steeple-
chasing, and regards the hounds only as so many move-
able, and often inconvenient, flags ; a fifth, who knows
every yard of ground for twenty miles round, has slipped
off directly after the gallop to catch a train to London —
and you are very lucky if you can get hold of the sixth,
with a guarantee that he is communicative, accurate,
intimate with the country, and not disposed to crab the
run because his old bay mare could not quite go the pace
with the galloping quads of Nos. 1 and 4. Then the
other hard — but for the nonce unlucky— men cannot

HEARSAY. 155

lielp feeling a trifle snlky ; and be they tlie best fellows
in tlie world — as they probably are — it would be asking^
too ninch of human nature, to expect them to invest the
gallop Avith the rosy surroundings it perhaps deserves,
or to be eloquent on what they have avowedly and
unhappily " missed." The larger mass aver they have
" had a splendid run, and have enjoyed themselves
immensely " — though they have not seen a hound all the
way, and can tell you little more than that the fox was-
found in one i)lace, killed in another, adding very possibly
that " they were well in it." The last-named authorities
are, however, usually good timekeepers. A good, but
not racing, run again gives wider opportunity of observa-
tion, and consequently greater facility for imparting the
information required — though even under these bettered
circumstances many events will be found described from
the point of view of <iuot homines tot sententice ; and each
man cannot but temper his opinion by the measure in
which he has enjoyed himself, A bad or even indifferent
run puts us out of the difticulty — for as a matter of
either description or memory it is as well consigned at
once to oblivion.

But, among the many sterling sportsmen at all times
prepared to seize their share of the fun, who have out-
lived jealousy, have bought experience, acquired an
intimate knowledge of country, and who hunt lor hunt-
ing's sake, there are always to be found some who are
not only capable, but willing, to convey a just outline of
events and scene. And kindly comrades as these ever
are amid the stirring fellowship of the field, their

156 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

■sympatliy flo\Ys still more readily in the time of need and
helplessness.*

Wild and stormy as were the two final days of last
week (January 25 and 2G), Hearsay avers stoutly and
circumstantially that they were replete with sport. The
morning of Friday certainly seemed to settle into
temporary and comparative calm ; the Quorn met at
Asliby Folville ; and it called for no great stretch of
fancy to credit Ashhy Pastures with another fox, or
Fortune's favourite pack with another goodly run. No
matter what visions may have visited a bedside, or what
yearnings have made the heart sick — the following is
what happened out of doors. The meagre sport of the
forenoon (wherein Tom Firr was the animal most closely
and generally hunted) served its purpose in reducing the
field to a moiety of its grosser self; and Ashby Pastures
became the sheet-anchor of the afternoon, to a sterling
and well-horsed company. These had their mettle first
tested by a hot and cheery ring of some ten minutes
over the Ashb}" grass — regaining the Pastures with their
fox already half-burst. The field then kept to the Great
Dalby road — while hounds threaded the wood on their
left hand, to emerge at the lower end and close at their
fox. Rising the next hill, they left Sanham considerably
to the right ; and though plough lay in the way almost
till Eye Kettleby Lodge, the pack never faltered for a
moment. Successfully overcoming (/. e. the hounds) or

* It vill be understood that an accident in the field had rendered the
author a temporary cripple, and dej^endent altogether upon kindly iriends
for knowledge ol' passing events.

HEAKSAY. 157

avoiding (i. e. the people) the difficulties of the North-
Western line, they then followed the Burton Lane —
hounds taking the strongly enclosed meadows on the left^
people the deep muddy cart track, till they reached the
Melton and Oakham road about the site of the Old
Burton tollbar. I should have mentioned that their fox
had held not more than a hundred-and-fifty yards lead as
he re-entered Ashby Pastures ; and he maintained about
the same relative position at the point last-named. But
he was by no means killed yet. He kept straight
forward over the road, across the great grass fields and
the river into jMr. Burbage's Covert, found the thick
blackthorn too stifling to breathe in, so cut through the
corner of it at once, re-swam the river, and struggled on
for Stapleford. A forward view ahowed huntsmen and
riders generally to cross the angle without nearing the
ford ; and now it became only a question of avoiding a
change to ensure a speedy kill. (More times than I like
to remember have I known a beaten fox left for a fresh
one on this Burton Flat). As nearly as possible would
the dreaded change appear to have happened as the
chase passed Mr. Hartopp's " white-rabbit " spinney, by
the road side. Hounds diverged on to a crossline, just
as the whip had his cap up on the sinking fox ; Mr.
Coupland made light of two deep fallows to get at their
heads ; they swung sharply to the horn, and next minute
were hard after their fox into Laxton's Covert. A
minute or two more hither and thither, through the
covert, then a moment's dead silence, then a sudden
crashing chorus and the welcome wlio-ivhooj^ over a fox

158 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

^vell earned and well killed. At an hour and ten minutes
Hearsay states the time ; while the distance from Ashby
Pastures to Laxton's Covert is about six miles by flight
of crow, in addition to the early ring. It may possibly
be argued that the frequent and handy roads in some
degree tamed the riding of the run ; but, let that be as it
may, or as it seemed, this was a gallant and satisfactory
hunt — as, I wager me, Master, huntsmen, and every
sportsman out will join with Hearsay in averring.

Watching the dark clouds driven across an angry sky
before a cold southerly wind, and knowing the barometer
to have sustained a heavy fall — it was difficult to imagine
hounds running hard on Saturday last, January 2Gth.
But I learn that there was a rattling scent all day with
the Belvoir, and that the Quorn had a good forty
minutes. The former pack met at Hose, in the Yale of
Belvoir : the latter at Lodge-on-the-Wolds, on the
opposite hills towards Nottingham. Hose is nearer
Melton ; so fashion went with the former — and the two
packs, though avoiding an absolute clash, were together
in Roelioe Wood in the course of the day. And what
the Meltonians saw w^as as follows — Hose Gorse blank ;
Sherbrooke's Gorse apparently so, even tliough its earth
was duly visited and examined. A local authority,
however, insisted it was tenanted ; a second visit was
paid ; and the visitor, heaving a stone into the cavern,
found a startling response in Reynard bolting right
between his legs. No further time was lost in covert ;
hounds leaving on the goodly terms whicli half ensure a
run from the small gorscs of the midlands. Overlooking

HEARSAY. 159

HIckling village, and towards Parson's Thorns, is the
grass-clad hill of Hiekling Standard. Up this and into
the breeze, hounds drove merrily ; then bent to the
right over the green enclosures behind Hiekling and
Kinoulton. With men and horses fliirly warmed, a
thoroughly pictorial Leicestershire scene was, I am told,
enacted. A tributary of the Smite drains the vale here ;
and is neatly and deeply cut as it passes the villages
named. Smooth turf leads downhill towards it, and
covers the bank beyond — the latter rising almost a foot
higher than the take-off, and half hidden moreover by
the sheltering hedge. A dozen men came at it nearly
abreast. Mr. Pennington on his brown Yorkshire mare
hit off, perhaps, the broadest spot, and reached the other
side with a fall. IMr. Barclay and his hogmaned chestnut
took some time to assure themselves that they had reall}^
arrived thither in company. Mr. Lubbock, the Duke of
Portland, Mr. Pryor and the first whip got over in
safetv ; while, accordino; as luck directed or horseflesh
failed them, Mr. Beaumont, Count Kaunitz, Mr. G.
Paget, Mr. A. Brocklehurst, and half a dozen others
filled in the picture with success or disaster. (On this
head I refrained from demanding further details from
Hearsay.) Turning now towards the upper ground,
hounds left Kinoulton " Gorse " a little to the right, and
made up a capital twent}' minutes into Roehoe Wood.
Running the length of it, they pointed for Wynstay
Gorsc ; till a shepherd dog put a veto on their
movements in that direction, and drove their fox back
throufrh the covert. At this moment Firr's unmistakable

160 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

voice rang up tlie wood ; and the followers of tlie two
packs found themselves commlnglmg' — Mr. Sherbrooke,
indeed, leaving the Quorn (the nearer pack in the
morning) went on with the Belvoir, to see their fox killed
from his own covert. This was effected when — after
slower hunting round The Parson's — the circle was all
but completed, and their beaten fox got to ground in the
bank of the Smite, at no great distance from Sherbrooke's
Gorse. A full term of law was no use to his stiffened
limbs ; and when bolted he was speedily caught. Time
to ground, one hour and three minutes. Then they
went to Clawson Thorns, on the other edu'e of the Vale,
ran hard for some ten minutes on the upper ground,
when the pack divided — the stronger lot, with the whip
trying to stop them, plunging through Piper Hole Gorse,
and killing their fox some little distance beyond it.
Gillard, meantim.e, stuck to his line with three couple
and a half— the latter proving the scent by running very
fast for another eighteen minutes, by Scalford Bog and
Goadby Bullamore, near which the missing whip re-
appeared— with the body of the pack, the head of his fox,
and a dirty coat. Thence they quickly reached Stathern
Point, the commencement of the Belvoir ^A'oods — forty
minutes constituting the total run from Clawson Thorns,
and a violent storm drivino; everyone homeward.

Monday, January 28th — though a Sunday visitation
of frost and snow had vanished as quickly as it came — -
was the first indifferent link in recent coils of the Quorn
daily history. A 'poor day, in less figurative language,
with an accompanying epithet added by Hearsay, who is

HEARSAY. 101

not above considering^ himself injured if scent and sport
are not made exactly according to liis order, and who
seldom fliils to express himself much more tersely,
pointedly, and unmistakeably than any poor penny-a-
liner would dare, 'Nov does Hearsay invariably make the
most of things unfavourable. To him a bad job is a bad

job, or even " a bad job ; " and he declines to

believe, still less to urge, that there is a " best " side to
it at all. Otherwise he might have qualified his con-
demnation of ]\[onday, with a saving clause to the effect
that plenty of foxes were found in eligible places, though
also too many open holes and too little scent. Thus
neither Cossington Gorse, Walton Thorns, nor Lord Ayles-
ford's covert gave them the required and anticipated run.
Nor was Wednesday, January 30th, with the Belvoir
at AValtham — though to all appearance a superb hunting
day — to be included in Fortune's roll of memorable
dates. To-day the foxes, rather than the scent, incurred
Hearsay's meed of blame — and he even infers that he
came home earlier than he might have done, through
giddiness consequent on repeated short rings over the
same country. It appears that the scene of the day's
operations lay entirely in the Melton district — • com-
mencing with a fox from Mr. Burbage's covert. Him
they ran to Stapleford, along a route coincident and
interwoven with that of railway and river. The latter
was brimful; and was instrumental in supplying the
leading episode of the trip. Between the water and the
railway runs a wedge of flat meadow-land, as far as tliQ
Brentingby Crossing ; and along this peninsula rode the

\e-z

THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

bruisers of the hunt — taking all they could in their stride.
At length they came to timber unjumpable, even to their
liberal ideas; so one of their number jumped down to
attack the barricade on foot— leaving his horse to take
care of himself. This the noble animal promptly
proceeded to do, by trotting down to the river bank, and
coolly swimming across to join the hounds on his own

" FORTHWITH SWAM BACK AGAIN TO HIS MASTER ! "

account. But no sooner had he reached the opposite
side than, upon a friendly horseman riding up to catch
him, he kicked his heels into the air, whinnied playfully,
and forthwith swam back again to his master ! (As to
this little anecdote, I carefully put Hearsay on his oath,
before venturing to pass it on to my readers.) The
Broom Covert and thereabouts, and round-and-about,
'twixt Waltham Stonesby and Freeb}' — embodies the
area, upon which Gillard and the Duke's pack worked
hard and untiringly, killed a fox, and ran others through-
out the afternoon.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE JOHX O' GAUNT GALLOP.

^^Jl^^HAT gallop from John o' Gaunt of Friday,
^S'^ February 1st, would seem to have rivalled
.Jl]^ anything in the great score of the Quorn, for
Mr. Coupland's marvellous — but alas, final — season.
At the meet at Quenby that morning it was made known
that the Master who has ruled our country so deftly,
and given us an unbroken succession of sport for four-
teen years, had determined on resigning office. Severely
as the loss will be felt, the country cannot look upon it
as unexpected ; for the last two or three years of his
Mastership have been continued in deference to the
strong feeling of the country rather than in obedience
to liis o\Yn wish and convenience. But no one else
seemed to be forthcoming who could aptly handle the
reins ; and so, rather than the Hunt should suffer, Mr.
Coupland consented to retain them. The Quorn country
is one that, apart from all monetary considerations ("which,
perhaps, have had their weight here as everywhere else),
demands a ruler possessed of more than an ordinary
share of tact, business-like liabits, and a knowledge of

men. Its visitors give little trouble of themselves — or

M 2

164 THE BEST SEASON ON RECOED.

at all events only sucli trouble as an active Hon. Sec.
is competent to deal witli. The visitors indeed find
most of the sinews of war. Did they not do so, it is only
fair to assert that their j^resence would possess com-
paratively few compensating advantages, to set against
the difficulties brought about by their numbers — in a
country by no means best suited to the infliction of an
immense field of horsemen. But — without raking up a
catalogue of stumbling-blocks over which an incon-
siderate and thoughtless Master of Hounds might find
himself tripping at any step — it is sufficient to point out
that his dynasty, to be stable and lasting, must be
founded on an attention to men and detail that the many
who regard the existence of an M.F.H. as a quiet and
comfortable autocracy would never imagine. There is
no harder-worked, or more sorely-tried, official in the
kingdom than the Master of a subscription pack in a
popular country. From this work and these trials Mr.
Coupland has never shrunk, but has combated them with
a success so widely known that encomium at my hands
would be only impertinence — but for which every member
of the Quorn Hunt gladly confesses to deep and lasting-
gratitude.

Reader ! (I am now addressing only the reader at a
distance.) How gladly would you, and I, have seen that
gallop on Friday, have been lifted in the whirl of its
quick delight out of the day-to-day stolidness of mere
being, have breathed Its ecstasy, and shared in its
chances. You are perhaps biding your time in some
far-off land, till your turn comes round for pink and pig-

THE JOHN O' GAUNT GALLOP. 165

skill in tlie Old Country once more. / am near enough
to the scene of action to hear at once of each stirring
event, to learn It from still excited lips, even to catch the
passing enthusiasm ere the flush Is off the cheek or the
sparkle has left the eye. The spirits must rise, and the
heart must quicken, to the recital — even though a tinge
of pain (the dogged refusal of human nature to lay aside
all self-regret) loill step in to temper the thrill of sym^
pathy. Ah, it must indeed have been a gallant burst — a
quick straight gallop over wild open country — of class
enough to make the leading chapter of a season, though
only a single specimen page in our well-filled scrapbook
of '83, '84.

To John o' Gaunt, then, a somewhat disconsolate field
dragged its way in the early, and showery, afternoon of
Friday — disconsolate for the news they had heard — that
the flock was to lose its shepherd — and for that they
had seen Barkby Holt and various minor coverts already
drawn dismally blank. A third of the blackthorn in
John o' Gaunt's dozen acres, be it noted, was cut away
last spring ; and low brushwood just hides the ground.
In this barest portion a strong old fox was fast asleep,
and nearly lost his brush before he could gain his legs.
He woke with the pack all round him ; almost knocked
over a hound that was too taken aback to seize him ;
dashed through the very legs of the huntsman's horse ;
and well nigh jumped out of his bright red skin as the
first view holloa of the day was poured into his astonished
ears. With the demon-voice ringing through and
through his distracted head, he stopped not lor trick nor

166

THE BEST SEASON ON RECOED.

thought nor parley ; hut hundled through the covert, out
at the bottom, and away up the green slope as if the
de — no, Firr and all his angels were after him. And so
they wxre, close and sharp and cheerily — as he rose the
greensward beside the railway, and made his "way
towards Tilton Station (as a fortnight before). The
field, of even more than ordinary Friday strength, trooped

'< DASHED THROUGH THE VERY LEGS OF THE HUNTSMAN'S HORSE."

down the ride and out through the ample gateway — as if
one and all Avould be with the hounds, happen what
might. And yet- — and yet — again the old story — another
mile found considerably less than a dozen near hounds,
while the ruck toiled on — happy enough in most
instances perhaps but not toitli hounds. Ill luck shut off
a strong and capable section ; tlie pace choked off a large
number more — and many of the rest got in each other's
Avay. The firstnamed, as I learned, were victimised thus
— Hounds, be it remembered, kept the railway embank-
ment just on their left. The two first fences (the one a

THE JOHN O" GAUNT GALLOP. 167

tliorn-blocked gateway, the otiier a hole in a lilgli bull-
fincli — the very desiderata for clubbing a mass of horse-
men) brought them to a crossroad that runs from Tilton
village under the railway to Marfield. Over this road a
white gate led np the second rise ; while a larch spinney,
close beside it, for a moment clouded the movements of
the pack from the straining eyes of the men behind.
Thus some of the latter took the right of the plantation
(towards the Halstead farm), under the impression that
hounds were bending that way — and in the next field
found an impassable gulf, completely cutting them off
from the chase and from hope. A quarter of a mile
round put them half a mile behind — and not a yard of it
could they ever recover. The leaders meantime had
swung across the railway with the pack (whether over a
bridge, or under an arch, I can induce none I have seen
to recall positively from their misty, hurried, recollection);
made good the Marfield brook, by ford or easy-railed
jump ; and embarked on as wet and wild a stretch of old
grass as the country holds. With a piping scent hounds
were running as close as they could pack. Each en-
closure measures half-a-hundred acres ; tlie fences are
laid and level — good at one place as at another — and the
vanguard rode almost abreast. Lord Charles Beresford,
Mr. Bunbury, ]\Ir. A. Brocklehurst, Capts. Ashton,
Molyneux and Smith, Count Kaunitz, with Mr. Gosling
and Capt. Candy — I cannot learn that there were more
than one or two others, till, after a long interval, a second
and stronger division rode hard in their wake. (Firr, I
need scarcely add, was in his proper and accustomed

168 THE BEST SEASON ON PtECORD.

position.) But lookers-on, who proverbially — and, in
foxhunting at least, veritably — see much of the game,
declare that after this second batch of twenty or so, came
another wide interval, and then a prolonged stream of red
and black dots covering at one time quite three miles of
undulating pasturage. This authority might have told
me more of what went on, amid the moving mass of
which he formed a late but lusty atom — had not his
attention been distracted by an incident that startled and
terrified him not a little. So deep and dirty was the
ground after the showers of the day and the storms of
the Aveek, that to jump out of a furrow was a labour, to
jump into one was a risk — enhanced by the pace and
augmented by the deep plunge of those who had passed
before. Landing into a quagmire, my atom extricated
himself, with difficulty and a prolonged flounder ; and
rode in jiibilaunce up the mead. But a crash and a dull
flop caught his ear ; and, ever ready to render help to a
comrade in distress, he turned round in his saddle — to
behold a citizen of Leicester and his trusty steed rofling
over and over each other in the deep brown mud. All
right ! The man was up again, and so Avas the horse ;
philanthropy might be cast to the winds ; and our
friend sped on, with all the haste that a full-blown
hunter, aided by a long pair of spurs but incommoded by
sixteen stone of exacting horsemanship, could command.
But, casting one glance more over his shoulder, the
Levite was in the instant airain the irood Samaritan.
Round he came in a jifley ; and galloped back to where
the fallen one was now to be seen writhing in apparent

THE JOHN 0 GAUNT GALLOP.

169

agony on the turf, liis steed with dragging reins cropping
the grass by his side. " Here ! Talve my flask ! ! "
shouted the Samaritan, flinging himself from his saddle,
and unsheathing a glass receptacle holding at least a very
imperial pint. " For Heaven's sake, man, speak ! Are
you badly hurt?" And with a merry smile the object of

" HERE ! TAKE MY FLASK ! ! "

his solicitude spoke. " Hurt ? no, thanks, not at all.
I'm only rubbing the rough edge of the dirt ofl' my back !
But I think I'll take a drink." So charity suffered with
becoming meekness the loss of his place In the run,
besides half the contents of his flask.

All this time hounds had been streaming away, at
first with their heads towards the distant height of
Burrough Hill, then witli a bend to the right (which
proved, I am told, of grateful assistance to more than
one of the party struggling against the pace) as if for

170 THE BEST SEASOX ON EECORD.

Owston Village. The brook from Owston to Twyford
was struck at some kappy point where it was anytkiiig
but formidable, scarcely even recognisable. Every rider,
light or heavy, had to drive his utmost down each gentle
declivity ; and the latter aver hounds helped them not
a little, by making the pace hottest down the hills and
easing It ever so little on the brow of each ascent. It
would seem as if their fox, striving his utmost to make
U23 the wind for the Cottesmore woodlands, was driven
downward and on till he had no jDoint In the open country
before him. Now he passed the brick kilns, midway
between the villages of Somerby and Owston ; now he
reached the back of Somerby ; and now he found his
first momentary breathing time — while the fortunate few
made the most of the check, to turn to the wind, to pat
their lathering steeds on the neck (and each other,
figuratively, on the back), to count their numbers, and
consult their watches. I did not ask what they said, or
even what they thought. I know the one (so do you ;
for we too have perhaps found ourselves in similar happy
case) ; and I could guess the other — the natural outcome
of " Five and twenty minutes^ my boy, seven of us there,
and not another soul In sight ! I wouldn't take five
hundred^ no, not a tliousand, for the old horse." With
a burst of kindly sympathy he added, " How youd have
enjoyed It, old friend ! " or I must have bade him leave a
fool to himself, and had the rest another day (forgetting
in weakness and longing that 30 to 1 had been the least
odds against each successful competitor). Not that there
was the glow and the go in the rest of his narrative.

THE JOHN O' GAUNT GALLOP. 171

Tliey had come a four mile point already ; and for
another mile uent heartily. But a palj^able change of
scent was tantamount to a probable change of foxes, on
the big heavy ploughs or at the strip of plantation at the
back of Pickwell. They hunted on to Whissendine, to
complete their seven miles ; but the vigour of the chase
was never renewed, and the run ended by slow degrees.
But that first spin was Leicestershire, every inch of it.

CHAPTEK XVIII.

HARDER AND HARDER.

(^^^|5g)N East wind, I fancy, loses little of its acerbity
(^/lr%^\ before penetrating to the Midlands, finds a

^k^^Si^ weak place in as man}' Imnian frames here,
as on more dusty soils, shrivels our faculties and con-
tracts our capacity for enjoyment quite as readily as in
other hunting fields. Often, however, it brings with it
a counteracting influence in the warming exhilarating
presence of a tearing scent that allows hounds to run
breast high over parched meadows or even crusted
fallows. Then we forget the covert side misery, the in-
sanity which bade us jump into spring clothing before
the dog days, and the flight of fashion which induced
lis to 2;ive credence to the new theorv that cords are
preferable to buckskin. But an east wind brought no
recompense M-ith it towards the close of last week. On
Friday (February 15tli) with the Quorn we were kept
moving all day ; so actually suffered little at its hands,
though we received but scanty benefits. After a cold
but pretty meet at Gaddesby Hall, we found a heavy
sign of early spring at Cream Gorse ; and, leaving her
with a blessing on the goddess Lucina, who would seem

HARDER AND HARDER. 173

to cast an impervious mantle round Madame Reynard in
her sorest need, we found Asliby Pastures forsaken for a
general gathering of the race at Thorpe Trussels adjacent.
Three fields in pursuit of one of these foxes made it quite
patent tliat a burning scent was not to be long to-day ;
three more fields certified to a fox to ground. Bolted
him, ran and hunted him for an hour and a half, aye and
hunted him to death close to where he was found. To
make a story of it, however, could only be done at j^er
line — a scale which is neither in keeping with mine
Editor's requirements nor with the material of five days
a week. I might, even with my matter of fact pen, draw
ghastly pictures of what we saw and how we were terrified
— now, and again, and time after time in that quiet cruise
round Great Dalby. The gallant, the giddy, tlie fierce
and the fair — for bravery, rashness, temerity, or timidity
— none seemed exempt from peril and catastrophe. And
we went home sorely puzzled in our minds as to whether
or no the game of foxhunting was, after all, too dangerous
— if not for our unworthy selves, at least for our best
belongings. But such gruesome incidents are better for-
gotten than perpetuated. They lacked even a comic side —
such as cannot but belong to even our dearest friend's
dive into a dirty duckpond — a trait of the plunger that
has long remained the only link between him and Her
Gracious Majesty's mounted musketeers. But there is a
certain monotony even in the routine of going out hunting
every day in rude health and returning home unscathed
— through which there have been many recent, and more
or less successful, efforts to break. Sunday, however.

174 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

lias generally been recognised as an off day and as more
in keeping with renovation after damage than as fitting
occasion for fresh hurt. So, as a matter of custom and
fact, a saddle is very seldom ordered out of Melton on
that day ; and wheels become the more ordinary and
safer medium of quiet exercise. It is by no means
against the code, though, to try a new one between the
shafts on the day of rest — and, moreover, it has lately
become quite an approved practice to put a half-broken-
down fovourite into harness and " drive him sound."
The Marquis was taking his recreation in this wise a few
days ago ; and old Lottery apparently took very kindly
to the job — stepping along as sedately as if his field of
vision had all his life been limited by a pair of blinkers.
All went well till he arrived at the gate of the residence
at which the noble coachman proposed to lunch, when
Lottery was pulled up short to allow of John jumping
down. But the gate opened towards him, the unaccus-
tomed bearing rein had already chafed Lottery's mouth
and temper, and the old horse began impatiently to sidle
and back. The buggy in a moment hung on the very
verge of the ditch, causing the affrighted owner to give
a sharp tug to one rein and a smart cut to Lottery's back.
This summary mode of proceeding brought the old horse
exactly opposite the side fence, and to his understanding
could mean but one thing. Accordingly, he took the
office at once — the bit and the hated bearing rein between
his teeth, and the fence in his stride — landing himself, the
gig, and the gallant marquis all into the next field in un-
disturbed safety, though tlie binders were fully four feet

HARDER AND HARDER.

175

liigli, and the dltcli beyond was quite wide enough to
satisfy the G. N. H. Committee ! The feat lias not only
■created its little sensation within and without the walls of
Melton ; but has stimulated the young blood of the city
to a new excitement. The annual Hunt Steeplechases
had all but been abandoned. Now a fresh course has
been chosen and approved, the meeting is to come off in

'• HE TOOK THE OFFICE AT ONCE."

April, and a chariot-race over three miles of fair hunting
country will form the not least exciting event on the
card.

Monday, February 19th, brought the Quorn back to
what has become quite their normal average — a great
■days sport. The ten flying minutes in the Vale, with a
fox just bolted from a drain, need scarcely be counted in
the record of the day. But the next performance —
another extremely fine gallop from AVelby Fishpond —
was of very different mark. Let me preface that the

176 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

east wind was cold as ever, but far less boisterous ; the
sun shone brightly, and the glass rose rapidly. Wind
and crowd alike prevented their fox from taking the usual
line hence Into the Belvolr country ; so now he set off
into the heart of the grass that, till the railway came to
disfigure It, Quornites held to be the best of their ground
north of the Wreake. There used to be little or nothing
to stop us between Welby Fishpond and Lord Aylesford's
Gorse. Now those beautiful pastures of Saxelby have a
railway cutting through their midst — and even the two
or three bold spirits who jumped into it were fain to be
content with riding down it to the station crossing. But,
for all this, a bright sharp twenty minutes took us over
the grass to Lord Aylesford's and over one long plough,
or one clamber round, to Schoby Scoles. Three, if not
four, difficult " bottoms " there were on the way — but
under good leadership they were all waded or scrambled
over by even the most timid of us. A w^orse difficulty
than any one of these gullies was in waiting immediately
hounds took up the running again beyond Schoby
Scoles. A gate, with half its topbars broken off, became
a very Gordian knot which refused to be cut, and drew
the crowd into its own entanglement. Half a minute
thus wasted may involve the loss of almost any quick
gallop. How long tliis scene of confusion now lasted it
would be Impossible for me to say — but hounds were
two fields away before the pent torrent broke forth, and
nothing but a second dry fallow saved the run to many
an almost broken-hearted pursuer. On regaining the
grass by Ragdale village, this bold good fox turned his

HARDER AND HARDER. 177

head abruptly up tlie wind ; and held it so for a sheer
five miles, with hounds hard at him all the way.
Leaving Hoby behind him, he chose the strongest of lines
above Ashfordby village, where the fences are so thick
and unbroken that even with a successful pioneer there
is scarcely room for half a dozen to ride to hounds. The
pioneer in this instance was Mr. Leatham on his bold and
untiring grey ; and as the chase moved hotly on, his
string of followers grew thinner and more prolonged.
Neither a division of lines near the village of Ashfordby,
nor a down wind and parallel road, proved of service to
those who by tlie pace or the intricacy of the country
once found themselves choked off: and it was only after
the hunt-boundary had been crossed, the hamlet of Welby
repassed, and the Duke's covert of Old Hills reached,
that the lone: train of horsemen could once more close
up. And this just an hour from the fmd ! Of course
a change of foxes must have occurred on the way —
though many an old traveller is nearly as strong as a
foxhound in mid-Februar}'. To make matters worse, and
prevent a well earned finish, two or three fresh foxes were
at once afoot at Old Hills ; and so, though Firr worked
back to AVelby Fishpond after another twenty minutes'
huntino;, it soon became evident that his run fox had
shifted his burden on to other shoulders, and the chase
was given up.

CHAPTEK XIX.

OLD FEIENDS.

]L HE Quorn were busy and merry ^itli two old
friends on Friday, Feb. 22 — doing justice to each with-
out exacting the extreme penalty from either. Three
weeks ago (you who do me the honour of skimming my
jottings may remember) I wrote from the mouth of Hear-
say of that gallant gallop from John o' Gaunt. Now I
can tell you how it w^as in part reproduced on Friday ;
and if the sweet morsel now tasted was a fair sample of

OLD FRIENDS. 179

the former feast, there neede"d nothing more to realise
the sterhng truth of Hearsay's glowing terms.

Baggrave had been the meet, on a bright and rather
blustering morning, A passing storm drove our coat
collars up as, soon after midday, we neared John o'
Gaunt ; and at once we flew to condemning weather and
prospects of scent as if all ho})e had been washed away.
And yet men seemed to know exactly what was before
them. No sooner were they within a field of the covert
than there ensued a general scuttle to the middle ride ;
while the pack was taken as usual to draw from the
Tilton end of the staunch little covert. Not two minutes
were Vv'c kept in doubt. The hero was at home ; and
lively enough this time, he darted across the ride before
our faces — incurrins: immediately afterwards the nearest
possible chances of losing the Avhite-tipped brush he
flourished so defiantly. First he ran his head right
against tiie whip at the bottom corner ; then his second
effort was met by a tumultuous yell from a signal
box full of pointsmen — these gallery gods being perched
up aloft so as almost to overhang the covert. But all idea
of the incompatibility of railways with foxhunting has
long since passed away from us. We accept their
presence under helpless protest — but still we hunt, and
still we find room to ride. To see their railway tickets in-
scribed " Melton to Leicester, via Joltn o Gaunt " still
brings a groan from sportsmen of anything like mature
age — but, happily, one seldom hears them speak of
shifting their quarters lor lack of room to move.

The huntsman's deep-voiced appeal — mandatory in-

N 2

ISO THE BEST SEASON' ON RECORD.

deed rather than supplicatory — awed into silence tliese
noisy cherubs ; the almost quivering horsemen huddled
in hushed anxiety within the covert ; reynard slipped
through his clamorous foes, and quickly made another
bold bid for safety. This time he was half-way up the
first narrow grass held, ere the voice he must have
remembered so well struck appallingl}^ into his ears ;
followed by scream after scream that he may have
deemed only the outcry of a railway engine, but which
were bringing six-and-thirty fierce fleet ladies hot upon
his track. How they scrambled, dodged, and darted
out of covert — past a crowd that could hardly contain
itself to wait their coming, so keenly did the memory of
the previous chance, the previous success, or the previous
disappointment assert itself Now they are away — and
in a moment clear of us all. Now you may cut and
thrust, gallop and go, to your heart's content — to a
burning scent and to as f\ist a pack as ever beat horses.
The same fox, no one doubts ; the same line, everyone
prays. Now for putting old Hearsay to the test — and,
if he told us a cracker, to jump on his back. A neat
new cut-and-laid still bears the marks of where he told
us five men rolled throu£>'h its thorn-covered ditch abreast.
That much was true, at all events, for here's a clean gap,
never left by hedgecutter, for us to shoot in our stride.
Ah, they are turning for Tilton and its woods, and our
conjured gallop will, after all, be a very myth. No,
forrard they are — breasting the hillside, a field before us.
Here's the open cross-road of which we had been told ;
here's the white gate staring us in the iace ; and here's

OLD FRIENDS. 181

tlie little black spinney that last time split the lucky and
the luckless. Good lellow, kind man, swing it cleverly
and swing* it wide ! And innocently, scandalously, half
a dozen of your comrades will cro\Yd you out — less in
malice, than in wild and wicked thoughtlessness. A
bullock track bids them and the sufferer walk placidly
through the side fence ; and then the rush again spreads
hurriedly. The old chestnut Akbar''-' proclaims all his
ancient dash as he rushes the tall forbidding bullfinch on
the brow ; while we of milder metal slink through a gate
beside. Halloa, Mynheer Hearsay 1 Here's your choked
gateway — thorns, sheep tray, and a couple of ashralls to
form " two on top." Good take-off, and good landing —
the pack swinging across the front, and the railway
bridge, about which you jumbled your evidence so cul-
pably, now again bearing hounds and field as through a
floodgate to the open pasture lands of Owston and
Sowerby. There he goes ! up tlie very next slope, with
his head for Burrough, the pack running as If they too
could see him — and we riding In all excitement of a
gallop in full swing. Field after field brings us opposite
Hearsay's gaps ; and we bless those that went before
that they made a strong country so easy. But It must
have been since then that the heap of stones was shot
down exactly where we must land into the Tilton and
Burrough road ? Twenty sets of hoofs in turn drop into
it, with a clatter that turns each man In his saddle to
learn what may have happened to the next comer. And

* Akliar, for some seasons past tlie property of Capt. Brocklolmrst,
formerly belonged to Sir- Beaumont Dixie.

182 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

3^ou said not a word, Mr. Hearsay, of this villainous ant-
liilly and rusli-covered field, over wliicli twenty men are
now spurring as fearlessly as if it were level and fair as
a polo ground. Crash goes the timber out of it, with a
treble but almost simultaneous report. Owston village is
on their right ; Somerby and miles of well-fenced prairie
ridges (if you will grant the two apparently opposite
adjectives) in front. Hounds, as before, are flying like
pigeons ; none of these simple old hedges ought to stop
us ; a dozen good fellows give us a ready and clever
lead ; and Hearsay swore there was never a brook in the
line. Confound you, sir, what then do you call this ?

Catch my horse, and be friend me ; or, if you will,

pull out your sketch book and get out of Capt. John
Brocklehurst's way! Now pencil in Mr. Leatham and
his ]\Tonday's grey hitting off a better spot on the right,
the huntsman on his big black readily accepting the
office, Lord IManners, Mr. Forester, Colonel Pole Carew,
Capts. Ashton, Molyneux, and Smith all in a cluster at
their heels, and Mr. A. Brocklehurst near the centre ot
the line getting the cleanest place of all, where the nearer
bank has a post-and-rall and the farther is less rugged
and steep than elsewhere. This done, get forrard for
Somerby Spire ; and point out to me where on the
former occasion you say you came to your first brief
check. Here they are, at fault again ! The man with
the inevitable sheepdog says, as usual, " He's just afore
'em ; " and adds as he catches up his panting colley,
" I'd hard work to stop my old bitch from running him."
Only a quarter of an hour ; but already is a check verily

OLD FRIENDS.

183

needed — for has it not been a i\ist-run race every yard of
the way ? A few seconds' rest will suffice us ; and the
struggle will commence again. Alas, no ! An open
drain explains the sudden check ; and our brief bright
scurry is at an end.

Later in the day let me take you on to the immortal
Coplow, and presume that, having seen the gorse on its

.f;

" HITTING OFF A BETTER SPOT ON THE EIGHT."

side drawn blank, you have dawdled jjast the House in
place of accompanying the hounds over the summit.
Possibly, in the weakness of a nature to which the
restricting hand of gout (the most impartial as he is the
most severe of whippers-in) has as yet scarcely appealed,
you may have found yourself blocked for one second by.
the sherry-tray that " stops the way " as if brought by
magic. Of a sudden there is a murmur, breaking into a
shout "They're away!" Away! Where V They may
have left in any direction for aught we can learn from

184 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

Lere. And tlie party scattered madly, as slieep from a
dog in their midst. No one knows whither to ride ; but
'tis no use loitering to lament ! We remember, in the
sudden instinct of desperation, that twice previously in
this season from the Coplow, the rough southern side,
towards Billesdon, has been the direction ; and at once
we dive and twist through the trees and shrubs to the
lower handgate. By all that is blessed and unexpected,
there are the hounds, skimming the plough as twice
before for the first steep brow. Three men only are
near them, as we make out in our struggle through the
deep clay — and these are Mr. C. Martin, Mr. H. Praed,
and Downes. Over the edge of the brow hounds have
disappeared from sight ; and only a hurried scramble
through two more hillside fences reveals them streaming
away in a deep gully below. Firr dips at once into the
steep valley in pursuit — -the roan sinking and rising over
liill and dale till in the distance he reminds one of a
terrier going in and out of deep ridge-and-furrow.
Mr. Charles Fitzwilliam is his only close companion ;
until the chase turns upwards towards Tilton Wood, and
in ten minutes those who have struck the cress lane
from Lord Moreton's covert become the " top o' the
Imnt." Lord Lonsdale's fox of a week aij-o is before
them again this afternoon. Second editions are the
order of the day : and, both forenoon and evening,
history repeats itself right pleasantly. As with Lord
Lonsdale, "' a momentary check occurs directly Tilton

* Lord Lonsdale liad an invitation-day with Lis i)ack in tlie QiKjrn
country the previous week.

OLD FRIENDS. 185

AVood comes in siirlit ; aiul IiouikIs race oft' for tlie wood
more quickly tliaii ever. To the one who plumbed the
depth of the well-edged water-course that eventually
becomes the Tilton Bottom, belonged all the pride of
place till the covert was reached.

But here — at a little blind fence close to the wood —
Firr met with a iall that, while costing him dear in pain
and disappointment, is likely to involve quite an equal
cost upon his Master and field in the loss of his
invaluable services for at least ses'eral days. A rick to
his back (his weak point for years) made it necessary for
him to return home on wheels ; and his return to work
remains still in the future. If sympathy would cure, a
thousand well-wishers should help him to the saddle again.
The run in question went on, even prettily, for a long
while after — the IMaster giving the pack every chance of
killing their fox. And their fox was right among them
in Launde AVood — but a fresh one tempted them on, to
complete an eight-mile point near Prior's Coppice.

Ash "Wednesday, 1884.

That the Belvoir should have signalised Ash AYednes-
day with a gallop is less remarkable than had they
failed to do so. That the custom was carried out, the
proverb fulfilled, and the anniversary duly honoured, was
only in keeping with what M'e had all been taught to
expect and what so many had journeyed far to see.
From Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Warwickshire,
Nottinghamshire, Buckinghamshire, even from York-
shire, they had come to trip it in Leicestershire, as soon

1S6 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

as tlie cliurcli l)ells released tliem and played them to a
midday meet. Of whom the array of strangers may
have consisted it would be impossible for an individual
to ascertain or note. Our hunting field does not,
unfortunately, endow even the elder boys with the
privilege of accosting newcomers with " "What is your
name, Sir?" — and the latter were to-day far too
numerous and far too widely gathered to admit of
acquiring the necessary information at one's elbow. As
with learning the hounds of a pack, it was easy enough
to mark the individual, but a hundred to one that the
person who could identify him was not within whisper-
shot. We are all curious about our fellowmen ; and the
keeper of the log book who complains that his entry for
the day is incomplete is by no means the only murmurer
on such occasions. Year after year though, I notice, the
Belvoir Ash Wednesda}^ becomes a more widely
attractive festival — and so, no doubt, it will continue to
grow until the Duke's pack loses its beauty and power,
or Gillard his skill in kennel and his fortune in the field.
The following few names will serve to illustrate, but by
no means to complete, the goodly compan3\ Mr. and Mrs.
C. Chaplin, Mr. and ]\Irs. F. Sloane-Stanley, Mrs. G.
Paget, Mrs. Candy, Mr. and Miss Fenwick, Miss Wilson,
Duke of Portland, Count Larische, Count Caunitz,
Colonel Fryer, Cclonel Pole-Carew, Major Starkey,
Major Stirling, Major Paynter, Captains Amcotts,
Ashton, Blair, Brocklehurst, Goodchild, Hill-Trevor,
King, Middleton, Pviddell, Smith, Tcnncnt, Wickham, M.
Deschamps, M. Roy, Messrs. Behrens, Beaumont, A.

OLD FRIENDS. 187

Brock leliurst, C. and J. Brown, Burdett-Coutts, Crawley,
Ciistance, Drnmmond, Duncan, Fislier, Forester, Good-
man, F. Gosling, Hanbmy, Hume, Leatham, Osborne, S.
Paget, Parker, Peake, Pennington, Prjor, Rose, Shool-
bred, "Williamson, Smith (huntsman to Mr. G. Lane Fox),
with very many others, whose names I either did not
know or that do not occur to me at the moment of
writinir.

The men from other countries had, of course, come to
Croxton Park to make, or renew, acquaintance with the
fair pastures of vaunted Leicestershire — and witli this
result, that in a half-hour's run from Sproxton Thorns
they were scarcely two minutes out of plough. Having
thus satisfied themselves of the nakedness of the land,
they were in a mood to accept with gratitude any small
modicum of sport that so inferior a county might be able
to afford tliem before nightfall So far they had gathered
themselves for an effort as unnecessary and out of place
as that of a strong man blowing soap bubbles. They
had already witnessed the natives ride over a hound or
two in the open, and jump on each other more freely
than in any country on this side the channel. Of
all this they made a quiet note, either with a view to
retailing in full at to-morrow's covertside at home, or
perhaps with the idea, should occasion offer, of for once
indulging themselves also in the obvious license, as the
afternoon went forward. So they followed on to
Coston Covert, again to gaze on a sea of plough all
round them, and to find the liahitucs of the scene at once
lighting up a second cigar, to consume the long period of

188 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

waiting evidently accepted as customary. That a horn
sounded on the second up the wind (S.E., the best,
perhaps, of all directions) seemed to take natives and
strangers alike by surprise. But the fox had found him-
self ; the big doghounds were scattered over the covert,
and there was time enough for everyone to be at the
starting-point before the pack were on his line. (The
pack, did I say ? No, a moiety at the most. The gallop
was half over ere the rampant phalanx opened sufficiently
to let the others up.) But with such a scent, wafted
down the breeze in their faces, I question if the tailhounds
could ever have caught the body — till the wire traps to
which we shall presently come had enclosed one and all
of the hindering horsemen — had the field waited yet
another three minutes, which in common justice to them,
it is only fair to add, they had not the slightest intention
of doing. A stalwart bullfinch checked wild ardour
for a moment, till a well-known and too-often-quoted
friend swept the strong rails from the chief opening, as
radically as a cowcatcher would lift a few sticks from an
engine's path. Over three rough pastures then raced
the crowd — the deep-sticky furrows searching out the
power of their mounts, and a fourth field a very nest of
pitfalls with its new made drains and its half-visible
watercourses. Thus for the village of AVymondham —
with grief, hurry, and happiness in their due proportions
by the way. Suddenly it became necessary — at least so
thought all the leading competitors — to jump into a deep
narrow lane which hounds had at least threatened to
cross. So in they jumped ; till the lane would hold no

OLD FRIENDS. 189

more, and the pressure became so dense tliat tliey could
neither open the gate out, nor rein back to release them-
selves from the cul cle sac. But they did get out at
last ; and scurried on above Wymondham, thinking to
ride for Garthorpe or Freeby, and with the greater part
of the pack by this time fairly free to hunt its fox in
peace. Wire, was the cry above the village ; Wire was
the same accursed sound, and siglit, beyond. (Is there
no man of influence and good-feeling in the parish of
Wymondham — or are they all cold-blooded and blood-
thirsty ?) Our fox was plainly in view as we ap-
proached the tirst murderous strand ; and he had gained
little on the hounds when we were penned by the
second snare. Two or three forward riders were all but
caught by the cruel wire ; some few others knew of, and
avoided, its propinquity ; and Mr. Alec Goodman in par-
ticular made an excellent cut, bv dashino: throuorh the
village and hitting a ford in the brook below. The body
of others, when extricated, found their path once more
barred by wire along the water. Rounding this by a right
detour, they squeezed through a buUtinch and forded the
stream — then sat down to ride for the fairest and quickest
ten minutes of the gallop. This brought them to Teigh,
to the very same farm whereat the Quorn killed their fox
last Kirby-Gate-day. Down the hillside at this moment,
and across the ri<rht front, came ]\Ir. Goodman, hat In
hand as he rode at the drairirled brush of the beaten fox
— one hound racing to the view, the others straining to
the w^arm scent. By the side of the railway, and past
Whisseudine station, went the fray — hounds somewhat

190 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

intermingled with, and cut off by, tlie liorsemen, but the
head of the pack chasing their fox hotly into Wymond-
ham Eoughs. With flagging horses men were glad
enough to make use of gates and ford, and gallop round
to the Stapleford crossing. No, he was not over the
railway — declared gatekeepers and platelayers ; and half
the hounds were already through the covert, their heads
up in puzzled inquiry. Tallylio ! ! Talbjlio ! came
Gillard's joyful scream, as he spied his game prone in a
hedgerow, twixt us and the covert. Tallylio ! and in
another moment the big dogs had rent and torn him into
many a fragment in mid-field. Thirty minutes without
a check ! — twenty-seven say some. But the margin was
too narrow to nurse dispute, and the fun too good to
admit of cavil. Another Asli Wednesday is scored to
the Belvoir ; another Ash Wednesday we owe to our
Duke.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CURATE IN SPRING.

'RIDAY the 29tli of February may of course
be looked upon as a Leap Year gift, an extra
day to our life and to the current season. In
traditional fancy we connect Leap Year with the upsetting
in sundry ways of the relations of the sexes. Li rumour
and fact we even hear of such topsy-turvey celebrations
as Leap Year Balls, whereat the timid male has to wait
his turn to be asked to dance, to sit out, or to go down to
supper. But such frivolous subversion of social econo-
mies has not yet been suggested for the hunting field.
The ladies on Leap-Friday were very forward, it is true ;
but only with the welcome prominence that has long
proved their ability in riding to hounds, and shown that
— seat and dress being the same — they would ask for no
lead, require no suggestion, on the part of the rougher
sex. The matter of seat and saddle would seem to be so
absolutely fixed by ancient custom (I confess to ignorance
of any other reason) that it is hopeless to expect a revo-
lution in this respect — at least, till the word fashion has
been altogether expunged from woman's dictionary, and
she has become a more unfettered agent than she pro-

19Z THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

bal)ly aspires or cares to be. But, granted that she is
compelled to adhere for life to the cramped and un-
natural position invented in deference to the overwrought
sensitiveness of her grandmothers or grandfathers, she is
still at liberty — indeed, by instances lately so numerous
and appalling, she is almost forced — to seek some altera-
tion or adjustment of habit, that shall give her in some
measure immunity from needless and peculiar risk.
Without dwelling at length on a subject that of late has
become so painfully patent, or discussing details with
which I have no business to meddle in print, it is
sufficient to say that, here at all events, the sight of
ladies hanging head downward from their pommels has
come to be considered the most prominent evil in
connection with the hunting lield, and a standing
reproach against the custom and the ingenuity of the
day. Men of tolerable calibre will stand a number of
bad falls in their own person, without loss of nerve or
keenness. But they find that such accidents as are now
constantly befalling their lady relatives and friends upset
their equanimity and disturb their enjoyment far more
than any casualty to themselves. Having discovered
this, they find the voice of self-interest coming into play,
and bidding them bestir themselves for their own com-
fort's sake. Accordingly, there has recently been a
great outcry on the subject of habit-skirts. Lords,
masters, husbands, and admirers have all been exerting
themselves, and have had as much to say on the matter
as their respective positions would allow. The three
former — at any rate those whose rulershlp is not merely

THE CURATE IN SPRING. 193

a farcical manner of speech — have gone beyond mere
protest, and insisted on the adoption of sensible means of
escape. With tlie habitmaker — wlio, after all, by his
skilful and tortuous cutting that envelopes each leg and
pommel with such marvellous closeness, is really the
author of half these entanglements — he dare not meddle ;
for does not the fit and sit of a habit constitute one of the
great, miiversal, and unavoidable, rivalries of the day?
Now, the feminine breeches-and-boots of Anno Domini
1884 are as little likely to shock the eye of the chance
observer, as the mention of them is to bring a blush to
tlie face of the fair wearer herself when ordering them.
They are known to exist, in all propriety as in all
necessity — and, as far as the requirements of delicacy
and possibly even of elegance are concerned, might well
dispense with their dangerous coverings, the cause of
these accidents. Let this be as it may. The order has
gone forth ; the method has met with acceptance at the
hands of matron and maid ; and, please Heaven, we
shall be frightened no more. Habit-skirts are to be
fastened loosely at the waist ; and in time of extreme
danger ladies must be content, not only for their own
sakes but for ours, to cast them adrift. Smile not, ye
ancient satyrs — the loosened zone of modern classics will,
even to your ribald minds, convey nothing to move your
mirth.

Twelve o'clock meets, and an enormous influx of
strangers, as unmistakeably presage the coming end as
any less technical symptoms of spring. Could we shut
our eyes to lambs, primroses, and the rusty particolours

194 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOKD.

of our well worn stud — we should still fail to attain
oblivion of sultry noon-tide at the rendezvous, and, in a
run, of the crowd of imfoniiliar forms rendering each line
of gaps and gates less our own than ever. In the
homely isolation of November we form of ourselves a
little nniltitude. In the unrestricted popularity of March
our local world is almost lost in a swollen stream of
visitors. Individually the latter are welcome and charm-
ing. Collectively they may become — well, too much of
a good thing. In Leicestershire it has never been the
custom to cavil at — still less to resent — the presence of
strangers. We are not prompted to throw the meta-
phorical " 'arf brick " by riding jealous of — or, as the
nngracious practice is termed elsewhere, of " riding at "
— them : but rather regard their comiug as a compli-
ment to a country whose reputed charms have brought
them hither.

Vicarious a sport as foxhunting must always be, It Is
never more so than In March, when it has to contend
against numberless . adverse chances of subject and
climate. At least every second fox is not fit to run —
and quite three out of four won't. At this time of the
3'ear they consider they have other occupations, and are
apt to decline altogether to enter into the fun of the
thing. From the experience of months that are past, or
out of a forethought for months to come, they are
acquainted with eveiy available earth or drain in the
neighbourhood — and accordingly seldom lail to turn this
knowledge to account, when called upon for distasteful
exertion. The coverts, too — especially during a winter

THE CUKATE IN SPEING. 195

as open as the one nearly at an end — have been so con-
stantly worried that they have lost all attractions for a
fox ; and, in a March so lamblike as this, a warm farrow,
or at most a hedgebottom, offers quite as comfortable
quarters. Then, except in abnormal and unsettled weather,
the heat is likely to be too great or the cold too severe,
the soil too dusty and the turf too hard. The very air,
redolent of flowers, seems repellent to foxhunting. AVe
are easily discouraged and readily become slack — and
very probably miss the sport that comes when least
expected. This year the foxhuiiter and the farmer
(whose interests are in reality indissoluble) are not treated
with equal indulgence. The latter complains that his
land is so wet he cannot, as he terms it, "get on it";
while the former, finding it still excellent riding, is apt to
imagine that this is the summum honum. desired by all
parties, and congratulates himself only too loudly.

Friday, the 7tli instant, illustrated many of the dis-
advantages and difficulties of j\Iarch, but a run of the
highest class was the outcome of Monday, the 10th,
when the Quorn were at Widmerpool New Inn, on the
Nottinghamshire border of their country. The field conse-
quently was not of the same giant proportions as on the
previous Friday in tlieir Leicester district. Yet in this
comparatively wild region (may I be permitted so to
term it, without offence to those whose presence is so
powerful in mitigating its savagery?) we are [accustomed
to go a hunting only with a few, and look upon it, indeed,
as affording the one weekly escape from a crowd. Now
there must have been a hundred or two to see The Curate

196 THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

drawn. The famous covert was silent as the grave for a
full quarter of an hour or more. Blackthorn and gorse
alike had apparently been duly searclied, and searched
in vain — when a solitary whimper broke the spell, and a
ready fox cut sliort suspense. He had evidently matured
his plan of action beforehand — founding it possibly on
the result of previous trials. He had no taste for the
northern plough ; nor, on the other hand, did he intend
to run his head against the laneful of carriage and foot
Iblk, that apparently cut him off from the best of the
Vale of Belvoir. Setting his head southward, in a direc-
tion that meant nothing definite unless It might be Old
Dalby Wood, he led us for a mile alongside the Melton
Railway ; then, turning sharper than at a right angle, he
twisted over the Widmer-pool-and-Broughton road near
the latter village — by this manoeuvre effectually evading
the caravanserai above mentioned. The sudden move-
ment had another result — disastrous or fortunate as the
case might be. It entirely readjusted the order of going
Avith a great proportion of the riders. Thus they on the
right flank — whatever their previous position — found
themselves at once in the extreme rear ; while few
became so well placed as those who with an indifferent
start were thundering up the road. The scent had
already proved Its power; and hounds were already
showing that they could glide over this difficult and
strongly fenced grass-country far more readily than a
cumbrous crowd of horsemen. Truly It was an excep-
tional hunting-day — the air clear, sharp, keen and quiet,
after a night broken by storms of snow and rain. The

THE CURATE IN SPRING. 197

ground was surface-laden with wet ; bat the storms were
all past, the sky wore an even face, and the glass was
rising steadily.

From the brow crowned by the road, the Vale opens
downwards in chequered ridges of steep green turf, till
the eye reaches the lower level, to rest on a flat un-
broken vista stretching away to the eastern horizon. On
the right flank, however, and some half dozen miles away,
rise the boundary hills of Holwell and Clawson, continued
iji those of Harby and the Belvoir Woods. Down these
first steep pitches hounds were now speeding like sea-
birds over a storm-tossed sea — their white forms now
dipping out of sight, now rising for som.e moments, to
disappear again. And what were most of us doing?
Why, taking our turn with too many others — first to
plunge through the only gap that could help us out of
the road, then to dribble, perforce, in single file in the
line of hounds. There was no escape. Each sturdy
fence presented only one loophole ; this had been
promptly seized by those in front, and tlie others had
nothing for it but to follow in leisurely distraction. To
make up ground through a field of horsemen is at any
time an uphill task ; when the country is so strong as
only to admit of progress in a single string it is an
absolute impossibility. By which — and what has gone
before — it will be rightly assumed that the man who has
to tell the tale was not quite where he wished to be.
And many better than he (for are we not all of us tailors
in turn ?) were in similar predicament — working as part
of a machine, riding as men in a dream, ever pushing on

198 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

Jind ever hindered, with all action trammelled, yet power-
less to shake off the fetters. Hounds were perhaps but a
couple of fields before them ; but, shut out of sight by
lofty hedges, they might as well have been a mile
away. A looker-on no doubt sees much of the game ;
but what he sees from sucli a point of view as
this is calculated neither to edify nor to encourage him.
Now he has to rein up short, while a friend, after taking
for quite fifty yards a deliberative position on his horse's
neck, leaves that to roll rabbit-like from furrow to furrow.
The loose horse utterly declines to be caught — ^preferring
rather to pursue the Master with dangerous closeness
over the following gap. As, however, he has already
ilung both his patent-safety-stirrups out of their sockets
and loft them a quarter of a mile apart, perhaps he would
not be of much use to anybody if he could be caught.
The very next fence affords another excellent proof of the
value of these inventions, in the stage of perfection they
liave at present attained. Dirt-stained and mud-be-
smeared, a second comrade rises from beyond a hedge,
which in due course — /. ^., after some-one has refused,
someone else has tumbled over, and a third someone has
stuck fast in — we hope yet to make the means of gaining
upon hounds. A grin flashes across his plastered face —
but it is no grin of holy joy, nor even of thankful appre-
ciation for the inquiry shouted. It is a grin of savage
temper, such as we had never thought to see disfiguring
those fashionable features. He is not hurt, nor for the
moment is he suffering for the loss of his pride of place —
still less for his very funny appearance. But both his — ■

. THE CUE ATE IN SPPJXG. 199

oil, such language ! — stirrups are gone, probably buried
in the ditch, and for tlie moment he is a dangerous
lunatic. Men whose years well-nigh double mine tell me
that the late Lord Forester would not even allow the
spring bars of his stirrup-sockets to be left down (a
precaution that I fancy few of our generation tempt
Providence by neglecting), lest a lost stirrup should
result in a lost run ! And after this and other recent
Sportsuian's Exhibitions in our immediate locality, I am
inclined to think that the old lord's practice if reckless
was at least reasonable.

Well, somehow — after passing thus through peril and
by-play — we reached the low^er Vale — hounds now some
three hundred yards before us, bending apparently a
trifle to the right, with a dozen red-coated riders and
as many black in near attendance. Happy thought !
the country is now open, and the fences apparently fair.
Bend to the right too ; cut straight to the head, and be
at once " at the top o' the hunt " ! No sooner said
than done, by twenty eager men. One nice easy jump,
two ditto, three ditto — one more, and w^e shall be with
them again ! Silly of us to have been dispirited so
readily ! Oh, soul of old Nimrod ! What's this ? The
Broughton brook — a great hedge-guarded chasm, not to
be jumped for miles ! Those fellows in front have hit
the bridge, and given ycai — I mean us — a slap in the
face that will last us many a day. Now you must just
gallop back and after them, or make a longer circuit yet
to a distant ford still more to the right. Oh, the
fortune of foxhunting ! And yet, even in rugged

200 THE BEST SEASON ON EECOED.

Leicestersliire — with its deep watercourses and rough
bottoms — it is held to be the better rule (except of
course in " High " Leicestershire proper and impracti-
cable) to ignore the country in advance, and trust to
fox and hounds, that they may lead you a rideable line.

But, at Sherbrooke's Gorse in the Vale, the pace that
had been maintained for twenty minutes was interrupted
long enough for the body of pursuers to recover their
ground — before the chase w^ent on, straight and almost
up-wind, to Clawson Thorns. The southern edge of the
Vale was now gained ; but still the hunt pushed forward,
reaching Piper Hole Gorse (a six-mile point) in forty
minutes — which we consider quite good going in this our
country of low degree. Here a fresh fox jumped up ;
the pack divided almost exactly in half, each section run-
ning its fox to ground — the one a mile or two farther on
the Harby Hills, the other, after about five-and-forty
minutes' more hard running, round Clawson, Holwell,
<tc., at Old Hills. The former fox may probably have
been the original starter from The Curate, for he only
just carried his brush to ground in time. The latter, too,
was nearly tired out ; but managed always to keep his
distance in front. Altogether, the run was undoubtedly
great and good.

I wish, by the way, that Mr. Sturgess could have been
posted in a certain road not far from Clawson Thorns, as
the chase swept across in the height of its career, and
when the pace was thoroughly " beginning to tell."
Seven couple suddenly glanced over the lane, to the
astoundiuGf deliirht of a knot of horsemen, who had not

THE CUEATE IN SPRING.

201

seen lioiinds for lialf an hour till they now flashed noisily
and unexpectedly upon them. So excited was one of
these hitherto luckless competitors, that, jumping to the
conclusion his turn had come at last, he set his horse at
the lofty hedge beside him, and bade him carry him to
glory. But the good steed had not so readily caught

■^ 'T-^

" AND SHOT HIM IKTO THE GKAVE OF BRIARS."

the enthusiasm ; he refused to jump either at the same
conclusion or at the forbidding bullfinch presented to
him, and forthwith entombed himself and his excitable
master in the brambly ditch preceding it. At that very
moment there dashed into the road, in all the ardour of
heated rivalry, another champion, who no doubt had
been bearing the brunt of battle all the while the last-
named had been cooling his heels in the lane. But he,
it seemed, perceived not that his bold leap was to land
liim into a road. His clever hunter did, though ; ducked

202 THE BEST SEASON ON RECOED.

liis head as he popped round — and shot him, too, into
the grave of briars. To officiate at the burial, even with
the apparently unseemly pantomime of a double somer-
sault, who more appropriate than the fearless minister —
whose good grey was as yet only half tired of cutting
out the work for weak sinners, and had still at least two
falls left in him ? The huntsman next jumped steadily
in, and even in the hurry of the moment was cool enough
to perceive the advantage of opening a gate out. The
Colonel,"-' however, had not risen at six that morning and
travelled all the way from London to ride a four-year-
old, for nothing ! So he flicked in and he flicked out,
jumped another rasper fifty yards on, and disappeared.
So they passed. And this is unembellished fact.

* Col. Pole- Care w.

CHAPTEE XXI.

DRYIXG up!

^ll^MPORTANT and valuable a section of the year as
^mi March may represent to numerous interests, I
:p^ fancy many Masters of Hounds, owners of horses,
and certainly all grooms, would gladly see it wiped off the
calendar. Huntsmen might not ; for they would cheerfully
hunt all the year round, making no bones of the state of
the ground, caring nothing for their own, but ready to
hunt a fox at any and all times as a bulldog is ready to
fight. Otherwise they, too, would willingly throw up the
sponge, and surrender the game as not worth the candle —
when it becomes a matter of a fox leaving no more scent
on a fallow than a swallow that has skimmed it, and
Avhen every road or gateway insists upon hounds throwing
up their heads instanter. This is the time (when isn't it,
though 1) to thank our stars we belong to a grass country,
or on the other hand to bring appreciation to bear on the
woodlands. The turf still holds plenty of wet for a scent ;
while the woods will, of course, remain undried till
Midsummer. Even on the grass the huntsman is far
more directly the motive agent now than at any other

204 THE BEST SEASON ON EECORD.

period. Hounds may rattle on lieartily across a mile or
two of damp turf; but those Inevitable "few acres for
turnips " (the which roots, by the way — or their equiva-
lent substitutes — might always be bought for half the
price from afar) are certain to throw the pack Into his
hand. Reynard, meanwhile, may have turned aside
from the rough fallow as naturally as a bather from sharp
shingles ; may have seen the shepherd in attendance on
his ewes just beyond, or may have even mistaken a white
mottled cow In the sunshine for a Meltonian on the
watch. Any of these terrors, real or imaginary, would
be quite sufficient to make him double in his course and
so leave the ploughed field at the most unexpected point.
The huntsman, meanwhile, has only probabilities for his
guidance, sees neither shepherd nor dog, and is still less
likely to make any mistake as to the identity of a good
subscriber at this period of fruition. Accordingly he
carries his hounds quickly round to the likely point, and
— unless his instinct be of that abnormal character to
which we are occasionally and happily treated — only re-
covers the line on his last and most hopeless effort.
(Parenthesis. Oh, what a fate must be that of a plough-
country huntsman In March !)

At the same time, huntsmen can afford to take far
more, and greater, liberties with their pack than in the
earlier months of the season. Every hound now knows,
or should know, not only his work, but that when called
he is called to the line of his fox ; therefore, instead of
losing heart, he gains fresh hope and interest as he finds

DRYixa up! 205

liimself lifted forward out of his difficulties. The " silent
system " may be well euough, and is in theory at all
events quite unassailable. But a man who acts rigidly
on the silent system would assuredly never make a run
in droughty IMarch — unless you gave him an east wind,
a close woodland, an open moorland, or a straight fox in
a purely grass country.

Friday last, March 21, was an illustration. The Quorn
had a long and excellent hunting run — all praise to the
hounds ; but more to the man who held them forward,
seldom by information, much by instinct, but more of
necessity quickly grasped. Bearing in mind tliat time
lost on the way was never to be regained, and that
hounds when unable to help themselves must be promptly
helped, he kept the ball rolling at a rate that never
allowed his fox breathini}: time — and so made a run
which in the hands of a dullard would have never even
budded. Great Dalby-cum-Gartree Hill had for the last
time been the formula. A vixen had dallied with the
pack in covert, while a traveller was packing his port-
manteau for a journey. Sex and deportment guaranteed,
he soon had the sound and substance of pursuit in his
wake, and we were climbing the Dalby and Burrough
heights, under a summer sun. How we panted up the
acclivities — perhaps even striding up the steepest ascents
on our own unaccustomed and unmuscular limbs — cau^-ht
breath on the Punchbowl, or arrived too late to catch
aught else than a glimpse of hounds and huntsman
vanishing beyond the farther rim, is but a variation of

*208

THE BEST SEASON ON KECOllD.

an oft-iDainted picture — a big sun for the nonce being
added to, and a liaze of yellow light pervading, the
usually quiet but rugged landscape. The Punchbowl
to Ranksboro' is an old-fashioned Cottesmore line — grass
and gates being the prevailing features. But here and
there with some arid acres of plough came also assistance
prompt and capable. We were kept galloping ; and,

"puzzling his troublesome pursuers."

if once behind, galloping hard— till we reached Cold
Overton Hall, which foxes would seem to regard as a
hare does a well-recognized smeuse. -E.r/., the first
little episode oi' the Cottesmore season was the run of a
fox through the conservator}^, across the drawing-room,
out over a tableful of Old Dresden, and through a pane
of 2^1ate-glass — not at all because he was beat and
distressed, but in order that he might put his know-
ledge of locality to the best advantage in puzzling his

DRYING UP ! 207

troublesome pursuers. The latter very fortunately hit
off the pouit at which Reynard had landed out amid
fragments of glass, before they could make the line good
into the drawing-room — or the ruin among the china
shepherdesses might have rivalled the horrors of the
sacking of Troy. But to-day the stableyard was his
thoroughfare — or his idyllic wooden horse — to convey
him through the Avails and on to Eanksboro' Gorse.
The Cottesmore Master was here to see the foreigners
fairly enter, and to view a fox (I fear one of his own)
stealing away beyond, l^ut it was not a day to squander
time on fruitless inquiry. A fresh fox on a dry and fine
da}^ is as difficult to distinguisli by his appearance as a
fresh egg — the test of eating not always being applicable.
At any rate this fox asserted himself as 3'et unfit for
killing ; and, as he in coarse of time betook himself out
of the reach of investigation, there can be little doubt
he proved his point — though in a slow hunt by AVhissen-
dine and Ashwell his opponents did ail that was possible
to maintain the contrary.

Eiding to hounds during the current week has been an
indulgence to which even those who partook of it most
readily scarcely denied such terms as suicidal, reckless,
shortsighted and hardhearted. Having dubbed it Avitli
these epithets in the abstract, and assumed a virtuous
demeanour as they clattered the roadside to covert, or
sauntered over the blocks of iron mud which now form
the gateways, they waited only to hear hounds open —
then at once cast all considerations of prudence and

208 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD.

humanity to the nor' east wind, and banged tiieir poor
steeds along at tlie tail of the pack. Young horses would
only awake to the bitterness of the ordeal when, after
landing lightly once or twice on to velvety turf, their
next wide spring perhaps brought them with a loud
resounding concussion on to ground baked to very stone.
The cruel shaking might not succeed in cowing them at
the moment ; but, depend upon it, it would not be wiped
out of memory for many a day, even should no more
immediate effect become apparent. The old horses would
in many instances have none of it — the boldest of them
whipping round with a vehemence as alarming as it was
sometimes comical in its results, or, worse still, taking a
fall as a deliberate alternative. The Quorn on Monday
last, March 24th, ran more than fairly for twenty minutes
from Willoughby Gorse ; and a very sizeable little field
scampered after them to, and beyond, the village of
AVysall — refusing to recognize that the soil was in any-
thing but a pleasantly normal condition till a check
ensued, not far from Widmerpool. Then, and only then,
did the peculiarities of soil and temperature seem to dawn
upon them ; and they mopped their foreheads and betook
themselves to gates. Little more was done tliat day;
though, with a brace of foxes at the Curate, probably
only the ill luck of hounds hitting first upon the vixen
robbed them of a run, perhaps of another spin across the
Vale. It was not difficult, though, to extract a large
amount of enjoyment even from that brief midday hunt.
We take our pleasure now nuich as amid the more

DRYING UP ! 209

playful episodes of cubliunting (not the early mob-liim-
and-taste-him period) — cantering quietly from gate to
gap, absolved at last from all shame in our cowardice,
and watching hounds, like Osman Digna does his fighting
men, from afar — or, as we prefer to term it in our irre-
verence for those who lived and rode before the world
seemed made only for us, " like good old-fashioned
sportsmen." There seemed to be quite a fair scent,
too, on Monday — as indeed there has been throughout
the week, since the dry wind has shifted round from
hot sou'-west to chilly nor'-east. The exigencies of
spring have on recent occasions introduced us to a mixed
pack — instead of its being composed as usual almost
exclusively of one sex or the other. In my compara-
tively worthless opinion this is a great improvement, in
most ways except appearance. The soundest and most
humorous of all judges of hunting advocated " a few
couple of dogs to correct the frivolity of the bitches."
Even this much is seldom granted — a couple or two of
little dogs alone being told off to the lady pack, in the
same way that a similar number of overgrown bitches are
sent out with the dog pack. I would go farther than this ;
and run about an equal number of either sex. If only as
a matter of music, the result would be welcome. But
beyond this, I believe the leading faults of each would be
noticeably corrected. (I am by no means alluding to any
particular pack of hounds.) The ladies by themselves, as
every tyro knows, flash very readily over the line, even
on a hot scent — either from over anxiety or from inborn

210 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD.

jealousy one of another. On the otlier hand, they are
much more rcaJ}^ to swing to their huntsman, make their
own cast infinitely quicker, and in a run will extract more
pace out of indifferent material. The dogs by themselves,
again, are often headstrong, frequently careless, and easily
discouraged ; they do not enjoy a big field, and the asper-
sion has even been cast upon them that " they don't like
being jumped upon." Natural as this objection on their
part would seem to be, it is in sober reality a decided
drawback — as much so as in the case of a steeplechase
rider, who has taken to looking over his shoulder as he
comes to his fences. Neither the one nor the other cares
to go through his horses. Between the lady pack and
their brothers, the one for choice — give me the former,
especially among the thick fences and crowded fields of
the midlands. But better still, I believe, if we could see
the two worked together in about equal proportion. The
ladies would be steadier ; the dogs would be quicker,
handier, and sharper ; the cry would be merry and easily
heard ; and we should kill more foxes.

The retirement of Mr. Coupland is a loss to the Qnorn
country that has for some time been imminent, but only
now becomes an accomplished, and very regrettable, fact.
For fourteen years Mr. Coupland has held the reins, and
handled them with unrivalled tact and success — leaving
lis under an obligation that is heartily and universally
recognized. A successor has now come forward in the
person of Lord Manners ; who at the Hunt meeting on
Saturday last was elected with glad acclamation. As a

DRYING UP !

211

keen foxhunter, bold rider, and popular county gentleman
the new Master is hopefully welcomed both by the members
of the Hunt and by the farmers ; and with all details of
the country left in excellent working order by Mr. Coup-
land, I flmcy he has no difficult — but a very enviable —
task before him.

LONDON- :
F.KADBCRV, AGNKW, & CO., PRINTKRS, WHITICFl'.I AR.^

5ctikatctt bn permission to ^.tl.H. tijc |3rincc of '^alcs.

In 7ncdii(in Srv, clot It, price \2s. 6d.
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Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine

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3

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